THE U.S. 'ILLUSION OF OMNIPOTENCE'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000500010016-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 2, 2004
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: October 4, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

C
Approved For Release 20@y4/.. J08 - CIA-RDP75-00149 000500010016-2
WASI-IINGTON CLOSE-UP .
The ancient wisdom ex-
pressed in the line, "0 that
mine enemy would write a
book," is not an absolute. It
depends entirely on how good
your enemy is at writing
books. The varied examples of
Norman, Mailer and Jim
?, Bishop to the contrary, it is
possible to write e good one.
Senator Eugene J. McCar-
thy, D-Minn., has just written
one and it is hard to see how
his enemies -- or the enemies
of the general position he
advocates -- can derive much
pleasure or profit from the
fact. The book is called "The
Limits of Power," and the
very title must seem a con-
tradiction in terms to such
enemies. Yet in lucid Ian
guage, in brief compass, the
last Stevensonian conducts a
brilliant analysis of our pres-
ent foreign policy, how we
got where we are, why we
ought to reconsider our posi-
tion and what we really ought
to be doing in the world of
men and nations.
The book is not calcaluted to
offend anybody, but it is fairly
sure to offend the Republi-
cans, the Kennedyites ;and the
Johnsonians. Senator Mc-
Carthy has thus assured
himself of a great future in the
Farm-Labor Party of his
native upper Midwest, except
for the fact that the party
doesn't really exist anymore.
In the senator's compressed
summary of the years since
World War II, we have drifted
into the illusion of omnipotence
in foreign policy, partly by
accident, partly by self-right-
de.
s ign, mostly because
we. didn't know what we were
doing and&still don't.
The last, good times, in this anertia, the dead weight of
view pf our history in the
: 'vested interest that keeps
policy going in all areas long
after its original purpose in
one area has been fulfilled or
abandoned.
The underlying thesis is
simply that no nation can run
the world singlehandedly and
it is high time we stopped,
trying.
It is an extremely attractive
possibility that emerges in the
final pages, an America that
would base its foreign policy
on close examination , and
'constant re-examination of the
way things actually are in the
numerous parts of the world,
an examination steadily
illuminated by the knowledge,
that there are limits to what
power can do, any power. He
concludes, "America's contri-
bution to world civilization
must be more than a continu-
ous performance' demon-
strating that we can police the
planet."
Yes, we can all agree, it
must be. But will it be? Can it,
be? .
The melancholy answer is
probably in Senator McCar-
thy's note that the personal
mark of his book, if any, is
"that which I believe Adlai
Stevenson would have made
on American foreign policy,
had his ideas and his attitudes
been translated into political
reality."
We all know what hzppened
to those ideas and attitudes,
first at the hands of the electo-
rate and second at the hands
of his own party in victory.
But even beyond that ques.
tion of whether, there is the
question of how.' As others
have so often in history, we
are finding in Vietnam that
the only hard part about going
for a ride on a tiger is getting
'off.
p
Approved For Release 2004/04/08 : CIA-RDP75-00149R000500010016-2
3y FRANK G::TLEIN '
world for the last two decades,
were with Truman and Ache-
son, the latter a classical,
therefore corservatve, shaper
of foreign policy. They were,
succeeded by Eisenhower and
John Foster Dulles, the latter
a stern and rockbound moral-
ist and fighter. of Communist
devils.
Dulles did two things that
still take their toll. He estab-
lished a worldwide system of
treaties that gives us the
theoretical justification to do
anything, anywhere, anytime,
to anyone that pleases us. And
he allowed the CIA, under his
brother Allen, to become the
quasi-independent, policymak-
ing, operation-mounting entity
that it is.
The author doesn't say so,
but the account is clear that
John F. Kennedy was simply
too dumb to realize what was
going on and allowed it to
continue. Obviously, you
aren't supposed to imply that
kind of thing about saints and
martyrs. Perhaps the most
damning judgment in the book
is the judgment that no judg-
ment is yet possible on Rusk:
after six years in office he
remains an unknown. Yet the
policy set by the Dulles broth.,
ers continues to shape our
ends, rough hew them as we
will. It is a policy based on the
belief that communism is.
always evil and always the
same and always to be op-
posed or "contained" by us in
any way necessary.
Senator McCarthy is keenly
aware of the inertia factor in
government at 'large and in
foreign policy in particular.
He feels that much of our
present trouble comes from