THE COLD WAR AND THE WEST
31
to lose their meaning and impact if they are not articulated in the
context of a full-scale political position.
There are other, more complex difficulties. "Identify," you say,
"with the movements and leaders of change throughout the world"–
but
this
cannot mean the same thing now that it might have fifteen
years a,go. Weare paying the price for an immediate past of
sluggishness, cowardice and reaction. A liberal foreign policy in
1947 or 1952 might have had notable consequences, while the ap–
parently same policy transferred to 1962 might cause hardly a ripple.
The intentions could be as good, the terms of application the same;
but the context has changed, usually for the worse. Too many things
have settled in the underdeveloped countries, and partly this
is
due
to the conduct of both Russia and the U.S., partly to the predictable
weaknesses of the leaders of the new nations. Any policy of trying
to "identify with the movements and leaders of change throughout
the world" must therefore be more radical and even desperate than
it would have had to be ten or fifteen years ago, and that
is
some–
thing the administration does not care to face. In all fairness it
should be added that the possibilities for such a policy have seriously
narrowed: there are a number of countries in which one can hardly
find any "movements and leaders of change." And what could have
been done in and/or for Indochina, Algeria and Cuba some years
ago can no longer be done today, just as what might still be done
in Latin America will be impossible fifteen years from now. Prescrip–
tions depend not merely on a general diagnosis but
also
on exact
observation of the stage the illness has reached.
The domestic situation
is
less favorable than in the late forties
for a tum toward an aggressively liberal foreign policy. The American
people have been systematically lied to about the realities of world
politics; there is a growing cynicism about the value of foreign aid;
and a new articulate minority, the extreme right-wing which is the
only political movement in America with crusading spirit and energy,
stands ready to fight any signs of generosity in foreign affairs. To
cope with
all
this, we would have to have an administration prepared
to educate, proselytize and do harsh political battle: that
is,
prepared
to face immediate losses in behalf of long-range goals.
Is a genuinely liberal tum possible? Yes. Likely? No. I am im–
patient with half-baked Marxists who "deduce" the impossibility of a
