DAVID RIESMAN
or even anti-American regimes together as Communists or as equally
beyond the pale of human encounter and discourse. So too, new
ambassadors were appointed in Latin America and elsewhere (such
a~
here in Japan) in the hope of getting outside the small circle of
conservative politicians, military men and businessmen within which
American emissaries had tended to become entombed, misled and
comforted. But at the very same time, the hope of some others in
the Administration to fight the cold war in a more streamlined,
ascetic, and "hard" way led to the growth of new illusions about the
possibility of contact with or creation of anti-guerrilla forces on the
American side, analogous to the illusions of the French, who, de–
feated in Indo-China, retired to Algeria in the vain hope of apply–
ing Mao Tse Tung's guerrilla tactics among a basically hostile and
anti-colonial population. Though the cosmopolitan Allen Dulles has
been replaced by the parochial John McCone, it seems fair to sa\'
that the new Administration is more cosmopolitan than its predecessor,
and its difficulties in dealing with the leaders of change throughout
the world do not stem from vested business interests or provincial
prejudices. Still, it is extremely difficult for well educated, successful
and logical men to understand the angry, inchoate, illogical radical
leaders of the new countries or the popular attitudes that underlie
the radical mood of the non-western intelligentsia-an intelligentsia
that obstinately refuses to grasp either the good intentions of the
United States or the bad intentions of the U.S.S.R. And in some
of our embassies there is enough legacy of McCarthyism (including
people who simply aren't there) .and fear of vested interests and
monistic thinking back home to make officials wary of too eagerly
seeking contact with radical groups of students and workers and
other potential leaders; not only would they be criticized for this
at home but also they would be criticized by fellow officials in the
embassies (who now of course include operatives from the various
intelligence services) and by conservatives like those Japanese busi–
nessmen who, along with Americans of like mind, tried to prevent
the appointment of Ambassador Reischauer to this country, on the
ground, among others, that he could speak Japanese too well. Even
so, I believe that the Administration possesses the intellectual and
moral capacity to become more receptive abroad, provided that it
can gain the leeway on the domestic front that it can do only
