Reviewing and building on a book that was written by Tevi Troy, Clifford D. May's latest article leaves you wondering: What kind of history do these people write and review and talk about?
Yes, history begins with
people because without them there would be no history. And yes, history is
created most of the time because there is conflict between people. But the
quality of the history that someone writes will be evaluated by how thorough the
issues and policies that led to the conflict, are elaborated on and explained
by the writer. The historian that makes the personalities in conflict bigger
than the issues, reduces his work to being a treatment for a movie script, not
a history book.
If Clifford May's article
truly reflects the content of Tevi Troy's book, then it must be said that both
gentlemen missed their calling. If this is the case, then Tevi Troy should go
back to being a specialist in health issues, his original profession, and Clifford
May should move to California, to a place called Hollywood where they need new
scripts to turn into movies.
May's article came under the
title: “We can't predict what Biden's foreign policy advisers will advise,” and
the subtitle: “Gurus, Svengalis or yes men?” It was published on December 15,
2020 in The Washington Times. As to Troy's book he reviewed, it came under the
title: “Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump,” to
which May added the following observation: “advisers to the commander in chief
compete –– sometimes productively, sometimes disastrously –– over both power
and policies”.
By the time you've read
Clifford May's article, you'd have realized that Tevi Troy's book is just
another American attempt to write yet another presidential history book, this
time by an aspiring “Presidential historian.” And this is the defect in the
telling of history by Americans. They believe that America is the center of the
universe and that the president is both the core and center of American life.
In fact, they believe that the intrigues unfolding inside the White House are
more important than what is accomplished, if anything is accomplished at all,
by those intrigues outside the White House.
Clifford May seems to be
conscious of that defect, which is why he tried to excuse it at the start of
his article with this lame explanation: “In theory, such analysis makes sense.
Personnel is policy, and personnel have track records.” Maybe so, but a book of
history must be big on the policies that shaped history than the vanity of the
people who may or may not have engendered those policies.
After all, except to a
Hollywood story teller, the inevitability of what ultimately happened to Rome
and Egypt is more important than what happened to Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. This
is so, unless the historian can show that there is a direct link between what
happened to the two countries and what the two leaders did or failed to do.
Of the many examples that
appeared in Tevi Troy's book, Clifford May chose to mention three of the
stories in his article. The following is a condensed version of how he presented
them:
“For example, during the Nixon
administration the rivalry between National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger
and Secretary of State William Rogers escalated into a feud. President Jimmy
Carter chose Cyrus Vance as his secretary of State and Zbigniew Brzezinski as
his national security adviser. Initially, they liked each other. It turned out,
however, that Brzezinski and Vance disagreed on virtually every key issue that
came their way. Unfortunately, the fights contributed to a worsening global
situation. The result was unnecessary confusion. President Barack Obama gave
Ben Rhodes the title of deputy national security adviser for strategic
communications and Speechwriting. Mr. Rhodes' rivalry was with a mindset. Mr.
Obama supported his deputy's assault on the blob, the established foreign
policy experts”.
Upon this, Clifford May saw an
opportunity to play contemporary politics. To that end, he first asserted,
without explanation, that Mr. Rhodes’s policies have led to failures with
regard to the situation in Syria, and the relations with Russia, Cuba and China.
Clifford May then added this: “At least regarding Syria, Antony Blinken, whom
Biden plans to nominate as secretary of state, has been candid. He admitted, ‘anyone
who had responsibility for our Syria policy [must] say we failed –– period’”.
This done, Clifford May went
on to exploit the occasion, bringing forth and scoring points with regard to
his pet beef: the Iran nuclear deal. This is how he played it: “That failed policy
was intended to appease Iran’s rulers. With this in mind, it would be logical
for Mr. Blinken to advise Mr. Biden against jumping back into Mr. Obama’s Iran nuclear
deal with both feet”.
Thus, Clifford May has shown that when historians concentrate on the intrigues that go on between the personalities rather that the issues, the result is the creation of fodder for use by subsequent generations who will want to play endless politics and accomplish nothing.