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178 SAISREVIEW Gleijeses offers Maria de Arbenz's explanation that after her husband's exile "the Cubans were very condescending, they made Jacobo feel useless." The author states that during the Arbenz years, military loyalty, or abstention from disloyal acts, was insured through increased military budgets and promotions. The armed forces were not communist, Gleijeses maintains, but neither were they anti-Arbenz. Even in the counterrevolution, he argues, the army was guilty only by omission as they refused to confront the militarily inferior band of Castillo Armas. The armed forces, explains Gleijeses, was more concerned about an imminent U.S. invasion should the counterrevolution fail than any militarized communist state under Arbenz. Whether or not Arbenz was a communist is not a crucial issue for Gleijeses. What is important is that Arbenz was a nationalist who demonstrated that Guatemala was willing and able to shape its own future. Says one close associate of Arbenz: "It wasn't a great conspiracy, and it wasn't a child's game. We were just a group of young men searching for our destiny." The tragedy of present day Guatemala is what makes this book relevant today. The character of the Guatemalan military changed dramatically after 1954 as did its role in Guatemalan politics. The overthrow ofArbenz represented the beginning ofthe violent period of Guatemalan history that has witnessed the virtual annihilation of the political left so influential forty years ago. Today, when Guatemala most needs leadership that can address the crushing problems of violence and poverty, there is no one there. Gorbachev's Retreat—The Third World. By Melvin A. Goodman. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1991. 224 pp. $42.95/Hardcover. Reviewed by Amy E. Kezerian, M.I.P.P. Candidate, SAIS. President Gorbachev's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1988 was more than a military retreat from what many had called the Soviet Union's Vietnam. It was a signal ofa major shift in Soviet foreign policy. Gorbachev acknowledged that this conflict did not fit into his new thinking. Since then, more dramatic changes in Soviet foreign policy have taken place. The Soviet Union repudiated the Brezhnev Doctrine and saw Eastern Europe embrace democracy. A divided Germany became unified, and the Baltic nations emerged. Sweeping Soviet policy changes have liberated areas once held firmly in Soviet control. Indeed, Moscow's foreign interests and priorities under Gorbachev took on a new direction that may eliminate the man himself. Less noticeable but equally important Soviet policy changes under Gorbachev have steadily occurred in the Third World. Melvin Goodman has provided a global oversight of these changes that scholars and public officials will appreciate. In Gorbachev's Retreat—The Third World, a solid examination ofrecent Soviet policy in the Third World, Goodman explains, with ample documentation, the reduced Soviet role under Gorbachev and presents military, economic, political, and strategic reasons for the Soviet retreat since 1985 from a number of its former interests. The book has added significance since the author testified at the Robert BOOK REVIEWS 179 Gates Senate confirmation hearings. He objected to Gates' confirmation and charged the CIA with inaccurately interpreting intelligence from 1981-88. Goodman spans the globe to illustrate his argument, tracing SovieWThird World relations from post-World War II to the present. The immediate past is reviewed in depth, showing how far Gorbachev has steered Soviet foreign policy away from its former course. Questions, however, remain unanswered: Are these policy changes due to President Gorbachev and his doctrine, which the title implies, or to pragmatic economic demands and forces, primarily within the USSR and Eastern Europe? Would these changes have happened without Gorbachev, because ofhard economic realities? What condition would the Soviet Union be in now if a conservative were in control, and how would its foreign relations have been different? Goodman discusses many elements that are partly responsible for the changes, but he avoids taking a clear stand. In the introductory chapters, Goodman discusses fundamental institutional changes which have affected decision-making since Gorbachev's coming to power in 1985. He singles out two key innovations that have altered the making of contemporary Soviet foreign policy: depriving the Communist Party of its input in foreign policy decisions...

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