Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August: A Crucial Read for Government Leaders Today

THROWBACK THURSDAY

The current horrors in Israel/Gaza left me speechless here for a number of days. Today I felt that this 2009 blog post had something important to say. 

Display of 1962 Soviet Missile in Havana

I wrote this in 2009 while listening to an audio biography of Robert Kennedy by Evan Thomas. I felt inspired to share these thoughts when I reached the chapter dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis. RFK later published a book based on his memoirs during this crisis called 13 Days, which led to a pretty good film by the same name.

13 Days is about a critical moment in the Cold War. Robert Kennedy was Attorney General at the time, with his older brother John serving as President. The adversary during this critical juncture in history was Nikita Kruschev. When it was discovered that the Soviets had begun setting up nuclear missiles in Cuba, the president and his team of advisers had to determine what course of action to take.

It was decided that the president would go about “business as usual” so as to not alarm the press or the public, while his brother RFK led the brain trust that would work out scenarios and a path of action. Amongst this inner circle were Adlai Stevenson, McGeorge Bundy, Dean Acheson, Dean Rusk, and trusted friend/aide Kenny O’Donnell.

Several important events preceded the crisis: the Bay of Pigs debacle; the building of the Berlin Wall the previous year, which revealed the nature of their adversary; the riots in Oxford Town several weeks previous when James Meredith was to be enrolled at Ole Miss, which showed Bobby how inept and unprepared the military was for a crisis; and the January publication of Barbara Tuchman’s Guns of August, which spent 42 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and which both JFK and RFK had read. This is a book that changed history.

The insights from Tuchman’s tome had a riveting effect on RFK when the brainstorming began and he perceived how hawkish men like Dean Rusk and the others were. In evaluating courses of action, Berlin was not a city with free people inhabiting it, but rather a bargaining chip. What’s worse, the Pentagon agreed that it was highly unlikely a pre-emptive strike would take out every missile silo in Cuba, so we would most likely lose at least one and maybe more major U.S. cities.

Tuchman’s book, primarily a description of the first weeks of World War I, was the wakeup call. Tuchman showed how the drums of war create their own momentum. Because of this book Bobby was probably the first to understand that military action very likely could lead to World War III, something no one in a nuclear age could ever hope for. And as a result, the brothers dug in their heels against being drawn down that slippery slope by overly-confident military exuberance.

As an aside I thought the following anecdote from the RFK biography was amusing. The magnitude of the resistance to the integration of the University of Mississippi had an unsettling effect on RFK. The violent clash at Ole Miss left two dead including a French journalist covering the story for a London paper. 48 soldiers and 28 U.S. Marshalls were wounded by gunfire. When a few weeks later he learned that there were nuclear warheads in Cuba aimed at the United States, the younger Kennedy quipped, “Think they could hit Oxford?”

This morning I want to thank God for Barbara Tuchman and her efforts to put down in lines the insights she’d gained from her dedicated research. This incident is living proof of the power of the written word. It is not a stretch to imagine that her book saved many lives, if not the world.

100 Years Ago Today: Why Did This Assassination Result in Total War?

World War I is one of the most challenging wars to wrap one's mind around because we as Americans did not understand the nature of aristocracy, geography or history in pre-war Europe. We maybe knew of a few names like Napoleon or Bismarck or King James or King Louis or whatever. But it was a mishmash. When we studied the war in high school we pretty much only knew that trench warfare was a horrible experience, brought home most forcefully by Hollywood films like Paths of Glory and Legends of the Fall.

It wasn't till I read the book Maximilian and Carlotta that I inadvertently saw how World War One came about. How did this man from the royal family in Austria end up as Emperor of Mexico? Once you grasp this you understand how the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand on this day 100 years ago resulted in a world war.

Maximilian was younger brother of the heir to the throne, so trying to find his life purpose was not easy if his father and brother lived long lives. He travelled to historical places and drank wine to honor those who died here and there throughout history but most of what he did was killing time till there was some occasion to serve someone in a more official capacity.

As it turns out, the occasion did indeed arise when seven French soldiers were killed during an incident in Vera Cruz, Mexico. This backstory is neglected in the Wikipedia account of Max and Carlotta, but the book details it like this.

France, like all prideful nations, insisted that the shedding of French blood should not go unpunished. The solution was to take over Mexico. The Monroe Doctrine forbids European powers to meddle in the affairs of North and South America, but we were in the midst of a vitriolic civil war at the time, and the French knew Abe Lincoln was not going to put up a fight, so they (the French) came into Mexico and set up a government, installing Max as Emperor, something he was altogether happy to do. In October 1863 he took the throne. It was a short-lived failure. In 1867 he was executed by firing squad after being captured trying to escape the country during a government overthrow.

By reading Maximilian and Carlotta I came to understand that royalty in all the countries in Europe were connected one way or another by blood relations in order to stabilize the powers. If you invade me, all the kingdoms I'm related to will rise up against you, so you better think twice before you interfere with that border town.

Ultimately, when Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo, someone had to pay. Austria declared war on Serbia. This led to more wars being declared until the Central Powers (which included Germany and Austria-Hungary) and the Allies were all at war with one another, because of these family ties and commitments.

The propaganda machinery was set in motion in the U.S. to stir up animosity for "Kaiser Bill" and the Germans in order to overcome our national disposition to let Europe solve its own problems. When the Germans sank the Titanic with a giant iceberg, that was the last straw and we jumped into the war with both feet. No, wait, wrong sinking. Umm, oh, this is where the Lusitania story comes in.

For what it's worth, there is value in studying history. The events of 1914 provided many lessons for future leaders. Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August, which analyzed the first world war in detail, provided insights that later kept JFK and his brother Bobby from mistakes that may have resulted in World War III during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Just a little food for thought on this significant day in history.