ASIA: THE AMERICAN ALGERIA 45

tion, to a succession of inefficient and unpopular governments whose main claim to American support was their vociferous professions of anti-Communism and their attempts to suppress the Pathet Lao by violent means. The shift was in the main engineered by the CIA and opposed both by the State Department and even some of the CIA's own agents in the field. The shift resulted in a polarization of Laotian politics between anti-Communists and pro-Communists. Pro-Western neutralists, such as Prince Souvanna Phouma, and apolitical patriots, such as Captain Kong Le (who in 1960 staged a successful coup against the royal government), and all politically conscious elements not committed to the royal government, were now branded as pro-Communists and most of them became so in fact.

The attempt to replace a covertly pro-Western government with one which was openly so and had at its disposal an army trained and led by Americans, called forth a drastic reaction from the outside. While the clashes between the royal government and the Pathet Lao had been perfunctory and of a local nature up to 1960, the Pathet Lao now staged what amounted to a strategic offensive whose obvious goal was the conquest of Laos and the overthrow of the royal government. And while up to 1959 the Communist powers reacted with considerable restraint to the attempts to destroy the Pathet Lao and transform Laos into a Western military outpost, both North Vietnam and the Soviet Union now started in earnest to provide the Pathet Lao with supplies and technicians. As these lines are being written (early June), the Communist domination of Laos is virtually a foregone conclusion.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED in Laos has happened before and will happen again—in more important places and with more serious consequences—unless the underlying disorder in our thinking is removed. It happened before in China when we put our bets upon the most inefficient, corrupt, and unpopular group (hence the one most unlikely to succeed), allowed a one-time promising moderate group to fall by the wayside, and thereby actively promoted the polarization of Chinese politics between anti-Communists and Communists, which led to the latter's

victory. The same pattern has emerged in South Vietnam and is in the process of emerging in Spain. In both countries, we have identified ourselves with a regime that suppresses the opposition and equates it with Communism. In consequence, the popular aspirations for change tend to flow into Communist channels. The opposition tends to live up to the Communist reputation be-stowed upon it by the powers that be, and the same polarization of political life which we have noticed in Laos and in China in the last stages of the civil war is taking place in South Vietnam and Spain.

The United States has of course no longer any freedom of action once this polarization takes place. Yet it bears the responsibility of having contributed actively, if not decisively, to that polarization by supporting those groups whose anti-Communism seemed to be the most reliable and effective because they appeared to be most firmly committed to the defense of the status quo and most ruthless in that defense. Emphasis upon military aid is the appropriate practical concomitant of this conception of the political problem, and since military force is the last resort of decaying regimes, military aid becomes also a practical necessity.

The emphasis upon military aid is still further supported by the assumption that a revolutionary situation, likely to lead to civil war, in a country close to the periphery of the Sino-Soviet empire, was bound to be caused by Communist military intervention. Thus when the Laotian military disorders flared up in 1959 and 1960, our government assumed, and acted upon the assumption, that North Vietnamese units had entered Laos in force. This assumption, fostered by the royal government for obvious reasons, proved to be without foundation.

This emphasis upon military aid, to the detriment of economic assistance, is being nourished from still another root: the absence of a plausible and workable philosophy of economic aid. To improve the lot of the Laotian peasant—the main economic problem of Laos—through economic aid from the outside, requires a subtle understanding of alien economic conditions and a delicacy in social and political manipulation far beyond the ken of most of the administrators of foreign aid we have sent to Laos. It also requires awareness of the political context

46 COMMENTARY

within which economic aid is supposed to
operate. Where that context is blurred, as it
has been in recent years in Laos, foreign aid
loses its sense of direction. Considering these
and other complexities of economic aid, it is
infinitely simpler intellectually and more
satisfying practically to concentrate upon
the military sector. Any army can be ex-
panded, trained, and supplied, and you can
show the taxpayer by way of tangible results
what he has got for his money. If the army
is too big for the population to support, if
its training is unsuited to the terrain in
which it is likely to operate, if its build-up is
politically counter-productive—all of which
applies to the results of our military aid in
Laos—Congress and the public at large are
not likely to be aware of it.

A policy of military containment outside
Europe is self-defeating in that it is a power-
ful factor in the expansion of what it intends
to contain. Yet while in Europe our policy
of containment has thus far not been put to
the test because of the plausibility of the
American atomic deterrent, it has been
tested in Asia. It has unmistakably worked
only in Korea, albeit at the cost of war, and
for the time being in the straits of Taiwan.
In Indochina it worked neither before 1945
nor does it work now. It is exactly this mix-
ture of success and failure in the short run
and the prospect of failure in the long run
that threatens the United States with a
catastrophe of one sort or another.

IN THE SHORT RUN, the inner weakness of
our position in the territories of our Asian
allies and clients has brought about the
virtual loss of Laos, it acutely endangers
South Vietnam, and threatens Iran; it may
threaten other nations tomorrow. The ad-
ministration has reconciled itself to the loss
of Laos. Is it going to reconcile itself tomor-
row to the loss of South Vietnam and the
day after to that of Iran? If it does, it is likely
to face a storm of indignation at home, and
only a very courageous and farsighted Presi-
dent will be willing to face it. If the admin-
istration does not reconcile itself to further
territorial losses to the Communists, it will
be compelled to embark upon a policy of
military intervention which can only have
inconclusive results at best. Furthermore,
insofar as that intervention takes place at
the periphery of the Chinese empire, it is

predicated upon the continuing military
weakness of Communist China.

What contains China today is not the
military power which the United States can
muster in Laos, Thailand, South Vietnam,
or Taiwan; what contains China is its own
weakness. However, that weakness is likely
to be replaced in the not too distant future
by a strength which will make Communist
China the foremost military power in Asia.
When that moment comes, the policy of pe-
ripheral containment will be put to its cru-
cial test and will face the United States on
the grand scale with the choice between
retreat and war—a choice which has faced
us already on a very limited scale in Laos.
That war will not be a jungle war but an
all-out nuclear war. Once China has become
militarily strong, it will be contained—if it
can be contained at all—as is the Soviet
Union today in Europe, only by the plausi-
bility of the American nuclear deterrent.
How great is that plausibility likely to be?
And even if the Chinese government should
consider it to be fully persuasive, how will it
assess the damage it might suffer as over
against that of the United States? It is upon
calculations such as these, implicit in the
policy of containment in Asia, that not only
the success of that particular policy but the
very fate of the United States may well de-
pend.

It is disturbing that a policy which has
such fateful implications is being pursued
without an obvious regard for these implica-
tions. Some—myself included—have heard
very influential and otherwise intelligent
men, military and civilian, express opinions
about our policy toward Communist China
which, in their bland disregard of obvious
facts and likely developments, were no less
at odds with reality than the opinions of
French generals and politicians who believe
in the possibility of keeping Algeria French
by military means. The very folly of trying
to transform Laos into an American military
stronghold at the borders of China without
anticipating a reaction from across the
border, points to a collective loss of the sense
of reality.

Nor is that loss limited to officials of the
government. The great mass of our people
live in virtually total ignorance of the reali-
ties of the situation in Asia. Here looms the
prospect of another catastrophe. The popu-

ASIA: THE AMERICAN ALGERIA 47

lar assessment of America's position in the
world is about ten years behind the times.
The standards of judgment of the American
people stem from the pre-atomic age and
that short-lived period when the United
States had an atomic monopoly. Nobody in
authority has told us how radically the bi-
polarity of nuclear weapons has affected the
position of the United States and how the
further proliferation of nuclear weapons is
likely to affect it, to what extent the com-
mitments of the United States are out of
tune with its power, and what changes in our
thinking and actions are necessary to cope
with the new conditions.

How will the American people react when

they come face to face with the facts of life,
not by way of a reasoned and authoritative
presentation but through the unintelligible
and, hence, misinterpreted experience of
piecemeal reverses? The memory of Mc-
Carthyism should give us warning; and so
should the political and moral devastation
which France is suffering in consequence of
its Algerian illusions. Yet as France owes its
awakening from these illusions to the insight
and courage of one man, so must America
rely upon the mind and character of one
man to awaken it from its Asian illusions.
The President has a sacred duty to think
deeply about these matters and, regardless of
political risk, to speak with frankness.

THE STUDY OF MAN

THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR TODAY

LEO MARX

SOME SCHOLARS MAY have been
aware of it for a few years,
but most of us have only begun to recognize
that we are entering a new phase in the
study of the American past. I am not think-
ing about the picture-magazine cult of the
Civil War, or *American Heritage*, or the in-
creasingly self-conscious, reverential, tone
taken (at all levels of culture) toward our
national greatness. What I have in mind is
no doubt related to all these, but it is some-
thing different: it is a recent development,
a new emphasis—perhaps *style* is the right
word—in the serious, academic study of our
nation’s past. If I had to choose a single
name for the emerging style it would be one
of the following: documentary, objective,
professional, organized, or official. Rather
than fix it with a name, however, let me
mention a few signs of its presence.

One of the more conspicuous signs is the
current outpouring of fine, scholarly editions
of American books. Step up to the "new
book" shelf at the library and you are likely
to find the latest volume—Volume XV—of
*The Papers of Thomas Jefferson*, or the first
volume of *The Early Lectures of Ralph
Waldo Emerson 1833-1836,\* or a vast
bibliography such as the impressive 1,193-
page *Guide to the Study of the United States
of America,†* a descriptive list of books "re-
flecting the development of American life
and thought" separated into 32 categories,
viz., Literature, Religion, Sports and Recrea-
tion, Music, General History, Society, and so
on. If this mammoth volume with a gold

eagle on its binding has an even more offi-
cial look than the other books I have in
mind, that is because it is got out by the
General Reference and Bibliographical Di-
vision of the Library of Congress.

The organized, programmatic character
of the new scholarship was most fully re-
vealed by Dr. Philip M. Hamer at the last
meeting of the American Historical Associa-
tion. Not having heard Dr. Hamer's talk,
I am relying upon a report that appeared
on the first page of the New York *Times*,
January 1, 1961, under the arresting head-
line: "All Records of Great Americans Are
Being Unified for First Time." (It is strik-
ing how many features of the emerging
style this headline manages to convey.) In
his speech Dr. Hamer described a plan, or
interlocking series of plans, to collect and
make generally available most of the signif-
icant documents of American history. It is
a remarkable program and, as Emerson
would say, a sign of the times—affluent,
conservative, and nationalistic times.

Today, in libraries across the land, teams
of experts are busy gathering, collating, and
annotating manuscripts. The whole appara-
tus of American Studies is being modernized.
For example, the first guide to the location
of all unpublished manuscripts and records
in the United States—that is to say, potenti-
ally useful records—is just out.** Huge
collections of documents are being pub-

LEO MARX is a professor of English at Amherst
College, and is currently writing a study of the
pastoral theme in American literature. His most
recent contribution to COMMENTARY was a review
of Hamlin Garland's *Crumbling Idols* (Septem-
ber 1960).

* Edited by Stephen E. Whicher and Robert E. Spiller. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 545 pp., $10.00.

† By Donald H. Mugridge and Blanche P. McCrum (prepared under the direction of Roy P. Basler). General Reference and Bibliography Division, Reference Department, Library of Congress, 1193 pp., $17.00.

**A Guide to Archives and Manuscripts in the United States. Edited by Philip M. Hamer. Yale University Press, 775 pp., $12.50.

48