Tension Between Opposites: Reflections on the Practice and Theory of Politics

Drawing on his 50 years of experience as a U.S. policymaker, presidential adviser, ambassador and arms control negotiator, Nitze ( From Hiroshima to Glasnost ) offers an uneven mix of autobiographical reminiscence and political theorizing. He provides vivid eyewitness accounts of history as he discusses his role in shaping WW II military strategy as director of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey; his work with George Kennan in containing Soviet military expansionism; his tense relationship with Dean Acheson, his onetime boss and Secretary of State under Truman; and meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev and Andrei Sakharov. In chapters titled ``George Shultz and Loyalty,'' ``Will Clayton: Virtue and Competence'' and the like, Nitze combines sympathetic portraits with speculation on ways to incorporate moral values into political theory. Nitze, who came of age during the Cold War, here applies his realpolitik thinking to the post-Cold War era, suggesting among other things, carbon taxes to reduce the deficit at home and military cooperation with NATO and Russia to end the war in Yugoslavia. (Nov.)