Clark Clifford: The Wise Man of Washington

2. The Elsey Report

2 The Elsey Report For better or worse, the defining moment of the Truman administration was the emergence of the Cold War. The transformation of the United States and the Soviet Union from wartime allies to Cold War antagonists was one of the more significant events in twentieth-century American history. While his foreign policy contributions pale in comparison to those of Dean Acheson, George Kennan, and George Marshall, Clifford ’s intimacy with the president guaranteed him a place at the table. Although his contribution may have been overlooked by historians, it was not overlooked by Clifford. Clifford believed that the Cold War began on September 24, 1946, the day he presented a report, “American Relations with the Soviet Union,” to the president.1 A synthesis of the thinking of Truman’s senior foreign policy advisers, the report argued in blunt language that the Soviet Union was an expansionist power and that it posed a threat to the national security of the United States and its allies. Six months later Truman announced that “it must be the policy of the United States to give support to free peoples who are attempting to resist subjugation by armed minorities and outside forces”: the Truman Doctrine.2 In Clifford’s opinion , the Clifford-Elsey report, as it has come to be known, “contained the seeds of the Marshall Plan, the seeds of NATO, and the basic principles upon which the President relied for the Truman Doctrine.”3 It is debatable just how influential the Clifford-Elsey report was, and historians continue to argue over the exact date the Cold War began. What is not debatable is the authorship of the report. Most historians credit George Elsey as the primary author, despite Clifford’s boasts that he wrote it. Perhaps more significant is that to the extent that it was important and influential, it was due to Elsey’s conviction and sheer tenacity. Truman had a very limited assignment in mind when he requested the report, and that is likely the reason he gave the assignment The Elsey Report 37 to Clifford. Elsey convinced Clifford, who in turn convinced Truman, that a more comprehensive study was needed. The resulting exhaustive study of U.S.-Soviet relations, which Elsey compiled with minimal assistance from Clifford, is a significant historical document, whereas the simple report Truman requested would likely not have been. One of Clifford’s signature accomplishments, therefore, properly belongs to George Elsey. U.S.-Soviet relations began to deteriorate as early as the waning days of World War II. Truman’s April 1945 lecture to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, in which he admonished the Soviets to honor their wartime commitments, fell on deaf ears as the Soviet Union moved quickly to establish a sphere of influence and a buffer against a potentially resurgent Germany in Eastern Europe. One by one, regimes friendly to the Soviet Union assumed power in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania. By January 1946, a frustrated Truman told Secretary of State James Byrnes that he was “tired of babying the Soviets.”4 George Kennan, who was temporarily running the American embassy in Moscow, prepared a lengthy analysis of Soviet-American relations in February 1946. Drawing on firsthand experience and his extensive knowledge of their history, Kennan argued that the Soviets were an expansive power antagonistic to the West. Furthermore, he argued that because of their historical insecurities and suspicion it was useless to attempt to negotiate with them. Kennan found an avid fan in Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, who urged everyone in the administration to read the “Long Telegram,” as it came to be known. According to Clifford, the Long Telegram “was probably the most important, and influential, message ever to be sent to Washington by an American diplomat.”5 At the time he wrote the Long Telegram, however, Kennan was a virtual unknown. Less than two weeks after Kennan sent his telegram, a figure of unquestionable stature sounded the warning of an expansionist , militant Soviet Union. Winston Churchill coined the phrase “Iron Curtain” in a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri . As only a great orator could, Churchill’s metaphor encapsulated the fear and suspicion of an ideologically and militarily divided Europe: From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line 38 CLARK CLIFFORD lie all the capitals of the...