The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War—A Tragedy in Three Acts

by Scott Anderson

“Premature action by us in that direction might have the effect of giving the Soviets an easy way out of the position in which I think they are now placed.” Churchill was flabbergasted. While there was no more devout anti-communist than the British prime minister, there had always been a tactical suppleness to Churchill’s dealings with the Soviets, and he had perceived the same in his first conversations with Eisenhower. What had happened since then? In brief, John Foster Dulles happened. Since Stalin’s death, the secretary of state had vehemently opposed extending any kind of peace feeler to the Soviets, insisting that they make the first move. Somehow Malenkov’s repeated calls for negotiations didn’t qualify. “I can say we have evaluated these speeches,” John Foster sniffed at a March 20 press conference, “but we do not receive any great comfort.” While steadily paring back most every olive branch contained in the proposed “Chance for Peace” speech, Dulles had then replaced them with ever more aggressive demands, leading at least one biographer to conclude that his ultimate purpose was “to foreclose any possibility of serious negotiation” with the new Soviet regime. That suggestion was reinforced when, two days after Eisenhower delivered his revised “Chance for Peace” speech, John Foster appeared before the same audience of newspaper editors to declaim that the only way to deal with the Kremlin was to apply more pressure. For the first time, though certainly not for the ...