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least, still our wretched doubts .
The process of simplification is evident in Mr. Podhoretz's division of
American politican opinion into two parts : there are liberals and conserva–
tives. Actually, I think that he is most troubled by a third , or radical, po–
tential in our politics, but, for the moment, let us follow the argument in
his terms. As a description of the Democratic and Republican parties, re–
spectively, in their attitudes to foreign affairs, his insistence on the existence
of two camps makes some sense .
It
would make even more sense had Mr.
Podhoretz added that, in general, both parties have shared in a consensus
(now, possibly, breaking down) that nothing fundamental ought to change
-either in our policy at home or our alignments abroad . In Mr. Podhoretz 's
view, at any rate, the recent resuscitation of isolationism can be attributed to
the liberals (or Democrats) turning with single-minded emphasis to our
domestic problems. He associates the change with a negative reaction to the
war in Vietnam, with the McGovern Presidential candidacy in 1972 . Again,
that candidacy expressed a radical upsurge in the Democratic Party-but
let us return to Mr. Podhoretz's argument .
The liberals, he tells us , were active and enthusiastic supporters of an
activist and interventionist foreign policy until very recently. Remember
John Kennedy's declaration that our country would bear any sacrifice "to
assure the survival and the success of liberty ." Surely Mr. Podhoretz is cor–
rect. The academics, bureaucrats, corporate lawyers, industrialists, publicists,
and unionists composing our liberal elite did support (and some of them
directed) the cold war am! its armed sequels in Korea and Vietnam . After
all, systematic anti-Communism had important accompaniments: economic
expansion at home and abroad, the development of an imperial appara–
tus-with thousands of jobs for the Liberal elite, funding and benefits of
all kinds . Anti-Communism mobilized some of the deepest strains of moral–
ism in our history. John Foster Dulles notwithstanding, it was not entirely
an exercise in Protestant hypocrisy. There were elements of generosity,
ameliorationist hopes and reformist projects mixed with policies of sheer
aggrandisement; John Kennedy presided over both the Green Berets and
the Peace Corps . The Vietnam war was certainly, in no small part, made in
Cambridge .
Liberals, according to Mr. Podhoretz, no longer pronounce the modern
equivalent of the phrase,
Civus Romanum sum,
with enthusiasm. They now
wish us to pursue far more modest goals abroad: the lost war in Vietnam
was a sobering experience . Liberals , further, now confront no backlash from
the right-so feared by Henry Kissinger after our retreat from Vietnam.
Conservatives are equally skeptical about a global policy of intervention,
eager to do business with Brezhnev and everyone else . Again, Mr. Pod-
