More praise for The March of Folly
“In The March of Folly, Barbara Tuchman, as usual, breaks all the rules. She sails forth with bold moral purpose at a time when most other popular historians hug the shores of biography and most academic historians are content to paddle quietly in small ponds.… Tuchman’s ‘special talent,’ as her fellow journalist and historian Frances Fitzgerald has written, ‘lies in her ability to wade through mountains of documentation and come out with Ariadne’s thread—the clean story line that permits her readers to follow her through a maze of events into the life of a period.’ … There is more to Tuchman’s appeal than superb storytelling. She also glories in unmasking deceit, cant, and pomposity.”
—Newsweek
“The specter of this ultimate folly [nuclear war] hangs over Barbara Tuchman’s brilliant and troubling book, The March of Folly, like a ghost from the future. She addresses it not a word. She doesn’t have to. No one could read her accounts of the powerful of this world … without thinking of the solemn warnings since 1945 that we are building weapons of our own destruction. For Tuchman this is the essence of folly: disaster plainly foreseen by many in good time, ready and feasible alternatives, willfully ignored by men obsessed with power.”
—Chicago Tribune
“The March of Folly is, at one level, a glittering narrative of three “major events.… At another, it is a moral essay on the crimes and follies of governments and the misfortunes the governed suffered in consequence.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“The specter of this ultimate folly [nuclear war] hangs over Barbara Tuchman’s brilliant and troubling book, The March of Folly, like a ghost from the future. She addresses to it not a word. She doesn’t have to. No one could read her accounts of the powerful of this world—corrupt Renaissance popes, the arrogant ministers of King George III of Britain who lost America, the confident Cold War mandarins of Washington … without thinking of the solemn warnings since 1945 that we are building the weapons of our own destruction. For Tuchman this is the essence of folly: disaster plainly foreseen by many in good time, ready and feasible alternatives, willfully ignored by men obsessed with power.”
Chicago Tribune
“The March of Folly is, at one level, a glittering narrative of three major events.… At another, it is a moral essay on the crimes and follies of governments and the misfortunes the governed suffer in consequence.”
The New York Times Book Review
“Only one living writer of history has gained and held anything like such a general readership. Barbara Tuchman’s new book … shows us why.… She now sweeps us through thirty centuries, from the fall of Troy to the war in Vietnam, paying close attention along the way to how the Renaissance popes provoked the Reformation and England lost the American colonies—the four events she’s found to propel her idea that the disasters of history are the result of the folly of rulers. But even these thumping good stories are not quite enough for her. We are also asked to think of Montezuma, of the Visigoths in Spain, of Louis XIV and the Huguenots, of the Kaiser’s use of submarine warfare, of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: folly upon absorbing folly.”
Vogue
“Like her past books, her new one is witty, intelligent and elegant. Tuchman without question is the most skilled popular historian in practice.”
The New Milford Times
By Barbara W. Tuchman
BIBLE AND SWORD (1956)
THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM (1958)
THE GUNS OF AUGUST (1962)
THE PROUD TOWER (1966)
STIL WELL AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN CHINA (1971)
NOTES FROM CHINA (1972)
A DISTANT MIRROR (1978)
PRACTICING HISTORY (1981)
THE MARCH OF FOLLY (1984)
THE FIRST SALUTE (1988)
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1984 by Barbara W. Tuchman
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of
The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random
House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random
House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to The University of
Chicago Press for permission to reprint an excerpt from
The Iliad, translated by Richmond Lattimore. Copyright 1951 by
the University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
Used by permission.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 84-45672
eISBN: 978-0-307-79856-5
This edition by arrangement with
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York.
v3.1
“And I can see no reason why anyone should suppose that in the future the same motifs already heard will not be sounding still … put to use by reasonable men to reasonable ends, or by madmen to nonsense and disaster.”
JOSEPH CAMPBELL
Foreword to The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, 1969
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
One PURSUIT OF POLICY CONTRARY TO SELF-INTEREST
Two PROTOTYPE: THE TROJANS TAKE THE WOODEN HORSE WITHIN THEIR WALLS
Three THE RENAISSANCE POPES PROVOKE THE PROTESTANT SECESSION: 1470–1530
1. Murder in a Cathedral: Sixtus IV
2. Host to the Infidel: Innocent VIII
3. Depravity: Alexander VI
4. The Warrior: Julius II
5. The Protestant Break: Leo X
6. The Sack of Rome: Clement VII
Four THE BRITISH LOSE AMERICA
1. Who’s In, Who’s Out: 1763–65
2. “Asserting a Right You Know You Cannot Exert”: 1765
3. Folly Under Full Sail: 1766–72
4. “Remember Rehoboam!”: 1772–75
5. “… A Disease, a Delirium”: 1775–83
Five AMERICA BETRAYS HERSELF IN VIETNAM
1. In Embryo: 1945–46
2. Self-Hypnosis: 1946–54
3. Creating the Client: 1954–60
4. “Married to Failure”: 1960–63
5. Executive War: 1964–68
6. Exit: 1969–73
Epilogue “A LANTERN ON THE STERN”
Reference Notes and Works Consulted
About the Author
Source references will be found in the notes at the end of the book, located by page number and an identifying phrase from the text.
Illustrations
THE TROJANS TAKE THE WOODEN HORSE WITHIN THEIR WALLS
1. Amphora showing the Wooden Horse, 670 B.C. (Mykonos Museum, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Athens)
2. Wall painting from Pompeii, c. 1st century B.C. (Museo Nazionale, Naples; Photo: Fogg Art Museum)
3. Bas-relief depicting an Assyrian siege engine, 884–860 B.C. (British Museum)
4. Laocoon, Roman, C.A.D. 50 (Museo Pio-Clementino, Belvedere, Vatican)
THE RENAISSANCE POPES PROVOKE THE PROTESTANT SECESSION: 1470–1530
1. Sixtus IV, by Melozzo da Forli (Vatican Museum; Photo: Scala)
2. Innocent VIII, by Antonio del Pollaiuolo (St. Peter’s; Photo: Scala)
3. Alexander VI, by Pinturicchio (Vatican; Photo: Scala)
4. The Mass of Bolsena, showing Julius II, by Raphael (Vatican; Photo: Scala)
5. Le
o X, by Raphael (Uffizi, Florence; Photo: Scala)
6. Clement VII, by Sebastiano del Piombo (Museo di Capodimonte, Naples; Photo: Scala)
7. The Battle of Pavia, Brussels tapestry (Museo di Capodimonte, Naples; Photo: Scala)
8. The traffic of indulgences, by Hans Holbein the Younger (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dick Fund 1936)
9. Lutheran satire on papal reform (American Heritage)
THE BRITISH LOSE AMERICA
1. The House of Commons during the reign of George III, by Karl Anton Hickel (National Portrait Gallery)
2. William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, by Richard Brompton (National Portrait Gallery)
3. George III, from the studio of Allan Ramsay (National Portrait Gallery)
4. Charles Townshend, British School, painter unknown (Collection of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, K.T., Drumlanrig Castle, Dumfriesshire; Photo: Tom Scott)
5. Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, by Pompeo Batoni (British Museum)
6. Edmund Burke, from the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds (National Portrait Gallery)
7. Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, from the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds (National Portrait Gallery)
8. Racehorses belonging to Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, exercising under the eye of the Duke and Duchess, by George Stubbs (Duke of Richmond and Trustees of Goodwood House)
9. Frederick, Lord North, by Nathaniel Dance (National Portrait Gallery)
10. Lord George Germain, after George Romney (British Museum)
11. The Able Doctor, from the London Magazine (Library of Congress)
12. The Wise Men of Gotham and Their Goose (Library of Congress)
AMERICA BETRAYS HERSELF IN VIETNAM
1. “How would another mistake help?” Cartoon by Fitzpatrick, 8 June 1954 (Fitzpatrick and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
2. “What’s so funny, monsieur? I’m only trying to find my way.” Cartoon by Mauldin, 23 November 1964 (Bill Mauldin and Wil-Jo Associates, Inc.)
3. “Prisoners of War,” by Herblock, 21 July 1966 (Washington Post)
4. “… and, voilà, we haul out a dove … a dove … I’ll have to ask you to imagine this is a dove!” Cartoon by Oliphant, 7 March 1969 (Universal Press Syndicate)
5. “Remember now, you’re under strict orders not to hit any dikes, hospitals, schools or other civilian targets!” Cartoon by Sanders, 14 March 1972 (Bill Sanders and Milwaukee Journal)
6. “He’s trying to save face.” Cartoon by Auth, 1972 (Washington Post)
7. John Foster Dulles at the Geneva Conference, April 1954 (UPI)
8. Fact-finding mission, Saigon, October 1961 (Wide World Photos)
9. Operation Rolling Thunder, on the U.S. aircraft carrier Independence, 18 July 1965 (Wide World Photos)
10. The Fulbright Hearings, February 1966 (Wide World Photos)
11. Antiwar demonstration on the steps of the Pentagon, 21 October 1967 (Wide World Photos)
12. The Tuesday lunch at the White House, October 1967 (White House Photo, Lyndon B. Johnson Library)
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my thanks to those who have contributed in different ways to this book: to Professor William Wilcox, editor of the Benjamin Franklin Papers at Yale University, for a critical reading of Chapter IV; to Richard Dudman, former bureau chief of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in Washington and author of Forty Days with the Enemy (a record of his captivity in Cambodia), for a reading of Chapter V; to Professor Nelson Minnich of the Catholic University of America for a reading of Chapter III. Reading does not imply agreement, particularly in the case of the last-named. I am solely responsible for all interpretations and opinions.
For consultation or help on various matters, I am grateful to Professor Bernard Bailyn of the History Department at Harvard University, to Dr. Peter Dunn for his researches on the return of the French troops to Vietnam in 1945, to Jeffrey Race for introducing me to the concept concealed under the jargon “Cognitive Dissonance,” to Colonel Harry Summers of the Army War College, to Janis Kreslins of the library of the Council on Foreign Relations, and to all the persons listed under the references for Chapter V, who were kind enough to make themselves available for oral questioning.
For help in finding illustrations, I am indebted to Professor Emily Vermuele of the Classics Department at Harvard, to Joan Sussler of the Lewis-Walpole Museum at Farmington, Connecticut, and her colleagues, to Marc Pachter of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., to the Department of Prints and Drawings and the Greek and Roman Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, to the Department of Prints and Photographs of the Library of Congress, to Charles Green of the Museum of Cartoon Art and Catherine Prentiss of the Newspaper Comics Council, and to Hester Green of A. M. Heath and Company, London, for her magic hand applied to the National Portrait Gallery (London) and the British Museum. The whole owes a coherent existence to Mary McGuire of Alfred A. Knopf, who kept track of a stream of disconnected material and buttoned up loose ends. Extra thanks go to Robin Sommer for devoted and effective guardianship of accuracy in the proofs.
My further thanks go to my husband, Dr. Lester R. Tuchman, for suggesting Rehoboam and for discovering the references to ancient siege warfare and the illustration of an Assyrian siege engine; to my daughter and son-in-law, Lucy and David Eisenberg, and my daughter Alma Tuchman for reading the manuscript as a whole, with helpful comments; to my agent, Timothy Seldes of Russell and Volkening, for availability and help whenever needed; and to my editor and publisher, Robert Gottlieb, for critical judgment and extended endurance of auctorial anxieties on the telephone.
Chapter One
PURSUIT OF POLICY CONTRARY TO SELF-INTEREST
A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?
Why, to begin at the beginning, did the Trojan rulers drag that suspicious-looking wooden horse inside their walls despite every reason to suspect a Greek trick? Why did successive ministries of George III insist on coercing rather than conciliating the American colonies though repeatedly advised by many counselors that the harm done must be greater than any possible gain? Why did Charles XII and Napoleon and successively Hitler invade Russia despite the disasters incurred by each predecessor? Why did Montezuma, master of fierce and eager armies and of a city of 300,000, succumb passively to a party of several hundred alien invaders even after they had shown themselves all too obviously human beings, not gods? Why did Chiang Kai-shek refuse to heed any voice of reform or alarm until he woke up to find his country had slid from under him? Why do the oil-importing nations engage in rivalry for the available supply when a firm united front vis-à-vis the exporters would gain them control of the situation? Why in recent times have British trade unions in a lunatic spectacle seemed periodically bent on dragging their country toward paralysis, apparently under the impression that they are separate from the whole? Why does American business insist on “growth” when it is demonstrably using up the three basics of life on our planet—land, water and unpolluted air? (While unions and business are not strictly government in the political sense, they represent governing situations.)
Elsewhere than in government man has accomplished marvels: invented the means in our lifetime to leave the earth and voyage to the moon; in the past, harnessed wind and electricity, raised earth-bound stones into soaring cathedrals, woven silk brocades out of the spinnings of a worm, constructed the instruments of music, derived motor power from steam, control
led or eliminated diseases, pushed back the North Sea and created land in its place, classified the forms of nature, penetrated the mysteries of the cosmos. “While all other sciences have advanced,” confessed our second President, John Adams, “government is at a stand; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.”
Misgovernment is of four kinds, often in combination. They are: 1) tyranny or oppression, of which history provides so many well-known examples that they do not need citing; 2) excessive ambition, such as Athens’ attempted conquest of Sicily in the Peloponnesian War, Philip II’s of England via the Armada, Germany’s twice-attempted rule of Europe by a self-conceived master race, Japan’s bid for an empire of Asia; 3) incompetence or decadence, as in the case of the late Roman empire, the last Romanovs and the last imperial dynasty of China; and finally 4) folly or perversity. This book is concerned with the last in a specific manifestation; that is, the pursuit of policy contrary to the self-interest of the constituency or state involved. Self-interest is whatever conduces to the welfare or advantage of the body being governed; folly is a policy that in these terms is counter-productive.
To qualify as folly for this inquiry, the policy adopted must meet three criteria: it must have been perceived as counter-productive in its own time, not merely by hindsight. This is important, because all policy is determined by the mores of its age. “Nothing is more unfair,” as an English historian has well said, “than to judge men of the past by the ideas of the present. Whatever may be said of morality, political wisdom is certainly ambulatory.” To avoid judging by present-day values, we must take the opinion of the time and investigate only those episodes whose injury to self-interest was recognized by contemporaries.
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