Alan J. Levine’s After Sputnik: America, the World, and Cold War Conflicts; an Exclusive Review by David in TN

By David in TN
Sunday, June 27, 2021 at 1:31:00 A.M. EDT

Alan J. Levine, historian and specialist on World War II and the Cold War, in 2018 published After Sputnik: America, the World, and Cold War Conflicts.

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I on October 4, 1957, it was a shattering blow to American national morale and confidence in the superiority of the American system. There was a real fear the Soviet Union would pass the United States in technology and power.

In a continuation from Levine’s book on the 1950s, Bad Old Days, Levine shows that the years 1958-59 were not a time of complacency, but some of the most anxious of the Cold War.

There were serious crises in the Middle East (Lebanon), Taiwan Straits (called “Quemoy and Matsu” at the time), Indonesia, Berlin, and finally, Castro’s takeover of Cuba.

Chiang Kai-Shek was a troublesome “ally,” and Berlin was always especially dangerous. President Dwight Eisenhower later said 1958 was the worst year of his life.

The two best chapters are “Eisenhower's Paradise? America in the 1950s,” and “The Enemy: Khrushchev’s USSR.”

Levine has findings contrary to the Conventional Wisdom. Eisenhower was much more of a hard-liner than sometimes pictured. His administration was aware that the problems of the “underdeveloped world were not created by the Soviets or other Communists, however much they were exploited by them.”

Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles were more “able and interesting than has been thought.” They dealt with a rogues’ gallery of enemies--Khrushchev, Mao, Nasser, Sukarno and Castro. Khrushchev, especially, was not the likeable uncle of later American perceptions. Remember how Stalin was called “Uncle Joe”?

Levine, unlike some so-called historians, takes the Cold War seriously: “It WAS a war, short of all-out war, but a war nevertheless, and very different from ‘peacetime.’”

Some people by 1959 were starting to get “bored” by the Cold War. Levine feels this was a key to some of the attitudes that came later.

Some of the more stupid later attitudes hadn’t taken hold. The guilt complex toward what would later be called “the Third World” “was far from universal in this period.” Some liberals resented being lectured by Asian and African “neutralists” on American racial discrimination. After all, these peoples were “notorious for caste, ethnic, and religious hostilities and brutal customs.”

The main problem for the United States was not winning the Cold War, but surviving it. Or not losing it. Eisenhower led us through eight years of crisis. They were halted short of disaster, but would recur.

Levine concluded with: “And, thanks to Castro’s victory a whole new front in the Cold War had opened up. Khrushchev’s offensive would be renewed, and converging with the unexpected triumph in Cuba, would produce the greatest crisis of the Cold War.”

Alan J. Levine’s next book is The Soviets’ Greatest Gambit: The Cuban Missile Crisis. The publication has been pushed back several times, and is now scheduled for July 15. It’s high-priced but I have ordered it.

N.S.: Every time I think I’ve got David cubbyholed, he goes and surprises me with new versatility!