COMMENT
ON THINGS NOT PUBLISHED AND OTHER MATTERS
During the past few months
Partisan Review
has received con–
siderable press coverage over an unpublished symposium on Amer–
ican foreign policy . Although it is unusual for a journal to discuss ar–
ticles it decided finally not to print, the controversy surrounding this
issue impels us to layout the facts as succinctly and clearly as we
can .
For some time ,
Partisan Review
has been interested in pub–
lishing forums of diverse opinions on such matters as relations with
the Soviet Union, defense and weapons policies, attitudes toward
Third World nationalism and revolution, terrorism , and other vital
problems facing the world at large. More than once we have cir–
culated a series of questions which quickly became dated because of
rapidly changing political developments, or which failed to elicit
strong enough replies to shed new light on these vexing issues.
In March 1986 William Phillips asked Michael Ledeen, whom
he had read in
The New Republic,
to review a number of books on
foreign policy. When Ledeen responded that he preferred to write an
essay on the subject, Phillips agreed. The essay was received in
June . In view of our previous difficulties in organizing good sym–
posia, Phillips thought that this essay would stimulate pointed
discussion, and asked Ledeen whether he would mind comments by
people whose opinions were distributed along a wide political spec–
trum. Ledeen agreed to the idea, and Phillips asked for reactions to
the essay by such people as Daniel Bell, Peter Berger, Nathan
Glazer, Lionel Abel, Ronald Radosh, Irving Kristol, Paul
Hollander, Dennis Wrong, Steven Marcus, Morris Dickstein ,
Diana Trilling, William Chase, Albert Shanker and Leon
Wieseltier.
Essentially, Ledeen argued, as he did in his book
Grave New
World,
that the formulation of foreign policy is enmeshed with
domestic issues and in a state of confusion- confusion magnified by
the involvements of Congress , the press, and the bureaucracy. He
referred to how poorly versed American leaders tend to be in foreign
policy matters, and how chosen "experts" in foreign affairs often
don't even know the language of the country of their alleged exper–
tise; and how our' 'national interest" frequently is subordinated to
formalistic legal questions. He addressed problems of helping
