CHAPTER 8A Strategy for Liberation
In 1948–1949, Burnham took his family on a cross-country vacation filled with camping, fishing, hiking, and, of course, writing.1 The trip softened him. Visiting the Midwest, Northwest, and Southwest, Burnham experienced Americana at its finest. Describing the trip to Sidney Hook as exceeding his expectations, he was particularly impressed with the people—whom he still called “the provincial masses”—he met along the way.2 Usually condescending toward Americans, Burnham finally came to see them more deeply, more intimately. He realized that the average American did understand world affairs; Americans grasped the true nature and reality of communism. He states, “I have come to feel during the past six months that in this country today, the masses … are in advance of their leaders.”3 Americans were not naïve. They did not want war, but they were not afraid of it either. They did not know if war would come, but if it did, they knew that they had to win. There was no alternative. Burnham experienced some patriotism, and the optimistic Burnham even made a brief appearance.
His next book reflects this optimism. Titled The Coming Defeat of Communism (1950), Burnham calls it a continuation of The Struggle for the World.4 The book's epigraph is a proverb that Lenin used: “Who says A, must say B,” meaning that once a first step is taken, the next one must follow.5 Burnham suggests that talking about defeating communism was insufficient. A guide for anticommunists, The Coming Defeat of Communism demanded action.
Burnham begins the book by stating that many books and articles had been written describing the Soviet threat. All Americans had heard the idea that the fate of humanity was at stake, but government leaders did not seem to recognize the crisis because their policies did not correspond with their words. And those brave citizens who sought to oust communist representatives from public life were accused of “hysteria.”6 Since World War II, the United States could boast only of thwarting Stalin in Berlin. Communists could boast about conquering China. Always keeping score, the hardliner asks, who was winning the Cold War? He answers that anyone who believed that trends favored the Americans were deceiving themselves.7
Burnham does describe some American successes in the early Cold War, or at least as much as he was able to express positive evaluations of American foreign policy. Compliments and flattery never came easily for him. They were usually coupled with criticisms. For example, in The Coming Defeat of Communism, he calls the Berlin Airlift a “dazzling technical and human achievement” and a “technical success.”8 Burnham, however, prefers a more aggressive response. First, the United States should have sent an armed convoy to Berlin. Yes, this would have been risky because a general war could have followed, but Burnham argued that the Soviets would not have resisted.9 Second, the intervention of Greece in 1947 was not bad because without US assistance, Greece would have fallen to the communists. The United States, however, gained nothing in Greece; it only avoided an important loss. The strategy in Greece was purely defensive and because a defensive policy is never adequate, Greece could not be called a victory. Third, Burnham concedes that the Marshall Plan did improve the European economy and helped thwart communist advancement in the region. That did not mean he believed it was well-intentioned because he wrote that no one wants a poor trade partner who is unable to buy one's goods. American policymakers should not be interpreted as humanitarian. Moreover, the Marshall Plan was also defensive and inadequate.10 All seeming Cold War successes were not really successes for Burnham; they were “negative successes.” If the United States wanted to win the Cold War, policymakers had to escape this treadmill.11
In The Coming Defeat of Communism, Burnham eagerly proclaims American failures in the early Cold War. First, Western policy against the Soviet Union was not formally unified. One day, policymakers accurately noted the Soviet desire for world conquest, but the next they would announce that the Soviets were “sincere” in wanting peace. One day, American leaders condemned persecution in Czechoslovakia; the next, trade was promoted with Czechoslovakia, something that could only strengthen the communist regime.12 Second, Burnham argues that US foreign policy was too narrow.13 The Cold War was not just a geopolitical or ideological struggle. It was a political, economic, ideological, sociological, and military conflict. Each of these fields related to the others, so they all must be fought simultaneously. Retreating or compromising on one meant retreating or compromising on all. Third, he continues to lambast containment because a defensive policy can never win.14 Finally and relatedly, he notes the United States had no real objective. Condemning the Soviet torture of priests in Poland while simultaneously allowing communism to fester there was pointless.15
The international realist criticized conferences, too. Burnham believed that “vague abstractions” like peace, international law, friendship, and cooperation were meaningless.16 It seemed that whenever conferences were held (e.g., Yalta, Potsdam, Tehran), the Soviets always got the better end of the bargain. Compromises and trade-offs occurred during the conferences; the United States would fulfill their end of the bargain, then the Soviets would renege.17 Examples included Soviet promises of democracy and religious toleration. The problem, he believed, was that US representatives naively assumed that they and the Soviets, although differing in means and ends, could still reach some common ground. Burnham contends in The Coming Defeat of Communism that no common ground existed between the superpowers. Communists only want world domination, and no cooperation could occur with an opponent bent on your destruction. Regardless, conferences only reflected the power that had already been achieved by one side. Burnham maintains: “Important historical problems are settled by wars, and by semi- or non-military clash of economic, political social and ideological forces. The conferences reflect and articulate the real power equilibrium that has been reached by other means.”18 The Cold War must be fought and won. Maybe then conferences could be held.
These ideas were partly aimed at famed American journalist and foreign policy strategist Walter Lippman. In 1947, about six months after The Struggle for the World appeared, Lippman published a sixty-two-page work titled The Cold War. George Kennan's containment policy bore the brunt of the journalist's criticisms.19 Lippman wanted to restrain Soviet power and influence too, he just questioned the applicability of containment. For example, he did not believe that US policymakers could use the free market to fight against a planned economy because that would require a constant allocation of economic resources to different parts of the world, something the free market could not handle.20 Moreover, containment could lead the United States to fight wars in which it was geographically disadvantaged, such as on the Eurasian continent.21 And contra Kennan, Lippman downplayed the relevance of Bolshevik ideology when attempting to explain Soviet expansion. He focused on the Soviet army; stopping the spread of communism meant stopping the Red Army.22 Lippmann believed that negotiating with communists could prove fruitful because rival powers had reached settlements before. Diplomacy does not mean converting opponents or ending rivalries.23 Diplomacy can, however, stop aggression.24
Lippman also believed that Western and Central Europe should play a role in curbing Soviet expansion. So did Burnham. He believed that the United States and Europe were natural allies in the Cold War.25 America and Europe remained part of Western civilization, even as World War I and World War II divided them. Their similarities transcend any past political differences. Despite the destruction that World War II had wrought across the continent, Europe still surpassed Asia and India in science, technology, and industry.26 Burnham suggests that Europe might be too weak and tired after centuries of war, tyranny, and revolution.27 Communists persisted in Western Europe, with complete freedom. The United States must convince Europe that her own fate depended on her ability to defeat communism. Europeans must be willing—under the leadership of the United States—to push back communism, to bust through the Berlin Wall, to bring all of Europe back together again.28
In chapter 8, titled “The Vulnerability of the Communist Empire,” Burnham asserts that before an enemy can be defeated, its strengths and weaknesses must be recognized.29 Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Soviet Union was weak: “The Communist empire is weaker, potentially weaker at any rate, than the non-communist public now generally believes.”30 Despite professed successes of New Economic Policies and Five-Year Plans, Burnham insists that the Soviet economy was poor and backward. And they lacked general technological expertise. This was demonstrated during World War II when Soviet soldiers lacked the basic technological skills—whether it be electrical or mechanical—that the US soldiers possessed. Signs of economic discontent existed too, particularly within the satellite nations where famines occurred. The Soviets eliminated the usual ebb and flow in business cycles by keeping their system in a state of permanent crisis.31
Burnham reasons that this weakness would mitigate the chances of an attack against the United States soon. But such an attack could not be discounted. The United States must be prepared. The Soviets might preach peace, yet they deceived, proven by how they invested and glorified the Red Army.32 In the meantime, the United States should consider aggressive measures—a first strike in fact could be “preventative.”33 By this Burnham did not mean that it would prevent war, but a first strike meant a better chance of preventing defeat. Only power deterred the Soviets. Working with the Soviets, on the other hand, increased the chances of defeat because, “experience uniformly proves that communists are always emboldened to further aggression by friendship, conciliation or appeasement.”34 The United States must always be ready to use military force.35
Burnham calls part III of his work, “The Plan.” Its first subtitle is “The Turn to the Offensive.” He contends that the first step in fighting the Cold War was to recognize the raging struggle. It was not a future event; it was happening now. We had grown accustomed to wars beginning with declarations and then proceeding as military clashes. The hardliner says that those days were over: “This means that both direct military preparation and its attendant economic measures should be advanced continuously, day by day.”36 He maintains that there would be no “D-Day”—no specific date that military engagement with the enemy would begin. It already had. Greece and Turkey were examples.
Parts of The Coming Defeat of Communism are the fruit of the first James Burnham who optimistically believed democracy could prevail if the United States properly used its force and power. Burnham argues that the United States had been too passive against communism and that this could be corrected with a “few hundred bombs in the right spots.”37 He even suggests the United States should launch an immediate, preemptive attack: “Why should not the United States launch an all-out armed attack at once, and get the whole business over with? … In the United States, the idea of striking the first blow is morally repellent to most people. I believe that this moral attitude arises out of intellectual confusion.”38 Burnham proclaims that if a first strike would save lives and create a more humane world, “then to strike such a blow, far from being morally wrong, is morally obligatory.”39 He contends that it was no different than striking Hitler when he remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936. Such a seemingly aggressive measure would actually have been defensive, and morally correct.40
Burnham sometimes demonstrated a more nuanced view of the Cold War, one that did not see the conflict as a black-and-white struggle that had to be fought using black-or-white means (war or pacificism). He believed that violence alone could not bring peace to the world because although great historical problems are never solved without some force, force alone solves nothing.41 Burnham also recommended nonmilitary means—what he called “political war”—to weaken communism. Force did not always have to be military force: “Political-subversive war against communism now, rather than immediate all-out armed attack, thus not only assures victory, but assures the victory will be worth winning.”42 The masses around the world must be educated about the nature of communism, and this would not be achieved by dropping bombs.
One form of political warfare was propaganda. In chapter 11 of The Coming Defeat of Communism, titled “The Propaganda Attack,” the hardliner argues that propaganda must be used against communism because the communists employed propaganda to advance their cause. And propaganda has always been part of life.43 Burnham asserts that the advent of new technologies and literacy has just changed the way it was transmitted.44 Small propaganda was a waste of time. Everything must be big. And the means should vary. Short-wave radio that promoted the Voice of America provided the most obvious example, but the means to spread propaganda were almost limitless: books, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, posters, maps, charts, movies, plays, stickers, and matchbox covers were just some of the examples Burnham gave.45 Propaganda can be supported by the government or by private individuals. Average Americans could send magazines they read overseas, on their own, without support or consent of the government. Who were the targets? Burnham says everyone, even communist leaders.46 Lenin's former disciple advocated propaganda that agitated the communist ruling classes, not the capitalist ones.
In The Coming Defeat of Communism, Burnham notes that propaganda must be both for and against something. The architects of the French Revolution, he says, were obviously against privilege and despotism. They were for liberty, equality, and fraternity. Applied to the Cold War, US propaganda obviously opposed Soviet conquest and the subsequent enslavement of humanity. Burnham describes America's principles as follows: “We believe individual human beings to be of an infinitely higher moral worth than any secular end or goal. We believe in an open, not a closed society, in the right of men and nations to be different—within the limits, at any rate, that are imposed by that very right; and in their freedom to explore varied routes to earthly and eternal salvation.”47 Westerners should not feel inferior when using propaganda. And they should trust its ability to persuade.48
His ideas about political warfare and propaganda were not original. By 1950, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had already begun using political warfare methods. In April 1948, Kennan wrote a secret memo tilted “The Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare.”49 It was influenced by The Struggle for the World. Like Burnham's 1947 book, the memo began with “The Problem.” Kennan defines political warfare as the attempt to achieve a nation's objectives, short of war.50 This included covert and overt operations. Psychological, economic, and political means could all be employed. The Foreign Service officer specifically recommends provoking resistance in satellite states by using propaganda. Consistent with Burnham, Kennan even recommends liberation in this memo (his “long telegram” and “Sources of Soviet Conduct” make no mention of liberation). He calls for a “Liberation Committee” whose purpose would be “to form centers of national hope and revive a sense of purpose among political refugees from the Soviet World; to provide an inspiration for continuing popular resistance within the countries of the Soviet World; and to provide a potential nucleus for the all-out liberation movements in the event of war.”51 For Kennan, the Kremlin employed political warfare against the United States, and the United States must do the same against communists.
Burnham agreed with all of this. Defeating communism while avoiding total war was possible. With proper strategy, the United States could create conditions that would lead to popular revolts and subsequently to the breakup of the Soviet Union: “The possibility of defeating communism without total war depends, on the last analysis, upon sufficient internal breakup of the Soviet Empire by revolutions of one kind or another—by political upsets which, whatever their social content and by whomever made, would at least crack the hold of the monolithic Kremlin machine.”52 These revolts, of course, would not occur without some sort of external pressure. That was where hard and soft power came in.
The Coming Defeat of Communism argues that an aggressive US foreign policy should foster revolts in satellite states.53 These states provided fertile soil for opposition movements because the Soviets had yet to, and probably never would, fully absorb the masses into the party bureaucracy. The ex-Marxist intimates that contradictions existed between the Soviet ruling class and the masses that they ruled over in satellite states. Popular revolts could ignite if opposition leaders in these areas were properly utilized; the people needed leadership. Lenin's former admirer employed Leninist means: “[The masses] will revolt only if they acquire a leadership, and through that leadership some measure of organization.”54 The unled masses cannot revolt on their own, but with the proper leadership, they can bring down communism.55 Exiles and even US representatives should be used to foment strikes, sit-downs, and uprisings in satellite states.56
Another precondition for the breakup up of the Soviet Union would be a division among the Communist Party elite. Burnham speculates that any division among the party elite would be advantageous for communist opponents because it was a “law of politics” that internal revolution required a divided elite.57 Revolts must also be led by party members. The anticommunist declares: “The leadership in the first stages (except for what can be supplied externally) can only come from within the Party itself, by a division in the Party. This fact is the master key to the overthrow—or even the serious weakening—of the Soviet regime from within.”58 Tito and Soviet defectors proved that Soviet leaders were not a monolithic bloc. The anticommunist maintains that purges also showed that some Soviet leaders resisted the regime. Divisions were inevitable. The death of Stalin and economic crises would all provoke division within party leadership. The United States had to foster these divisions.59 Communists promoted divisions in the United States; the United States must reply in kind.
Burnham argues that a division of the ruling elite would occur when the Soviets felt insecure.60 These insecurities must be exacerbated because fear prompts divisions. Despite their strong rhetoric, some Soviet leaders were plagued by doubt.61 They worried that the lofty ideals they preached could never be reached. The United States should exacerbate those fears with displays of strength and confidence. This could be demonstrated rhetorically, diplomatically, and militarily.
Burnham also recognizes the leadership role that the Catholic Church would play in ending communism in these satellite states. Communists had persecuted religious leaders since the early days of the Bolshevik Revolution. After World War II, religious leaders in Eastern Europe were arrested and sent to Soviet internment camps. The Soviets knew that the Catholic Church was a potent oppositional force. So did Burnham. He maintains that the Church may lack military might, but the Cold War was not only about armaments. The Church had other vast resources, like a faith that offered an alternative to communist faith and two thousand years of fighting against its enemies. The atheist asserts in The Coming Defeat of Communism that the Catholic Church offered powerful leadership and “Resistance” (Burnham always capitalized the word) in satellite states.62 These Catholic communities offered practical resistance to communism in the form of underground masses, celebration of Saint's Days, and the protection of priests.63 They should not be underestimated when confronting the Soviet behemoth.
The Coming Defeat of Communism reveals Burnham's profound disdain for American businessmen. He spends a chapter criticizing them, arguing that if the future of the United States lay in the hands of her capitalists, she was doomed because they remained a reactionary class. He criticizes business owners for their lack of knowledge of anything outside of business. Art, philosophy, politics, and social affairs provided some examples. This meant that other than the profits they reaped, they offered little for the struggle against communism because they were too ignorant, greedy, and cowardly.64 The former Marxist continues that the overall benefit of American corporations for society was slight, if not malignant, because they had an antagonizing effect on the rest of society.65 This, Burnham contends, was used by communists to recruit new members. In the struggle against communism, the United States could not rely on its capitalists.
The optimistic Burnham who believed that democracy could prevail appears in the final chapter of the book, titled “The Inevitability of Communist Defeat.” Reversing some of his earlier positions, Burnham writes that the communist advance had been slowed more than he expected when he wrote The Struggle for the World in 1947.66 Maintaining that the Soviets did have the geographic advantage, Burnham theorizes that strategic position by itself did not mean victory.67 The United States could offset this with the methods Burnham demands: intelligence, human power, and force. The United States needed more determined men and women who synthesized force and will in the struggle against communism.
The optimist predicts in The Coming Defeat of Communism that these individuals would emerge. Western civilization was aging, but the United States was not old. It was not ready to quit. She would show will. He describes a letter he received from a Czechoslovakian who had obtained a copy of The Struggle for the World. The man pleaded with Burnham: Americans must believe in the inevitable victory of democracy because if they did not, democracy could not prevail.68
Burnham concludes the book with a thinly veiled Hegelian-Marxist reference: “The defeat of communism, probable on the facts, is also inevitable, because there are enough determined men in the world—and their number daily grows—who have so resolved. The knowledge and intelligence, which enter into a synthesis of politics, are still needed in order to make that defeat as fruitful as possible a victory, as sparing as possible of blood and treasure. But the issue is no longer in doubt. Doubt is vanquished by the act of will that makes the decision. The future becomes the servant, not the master.”69 For Hegel, two concepts existed that relied on each other for their existence: master and slave. They must struggle against one another because each viewed the other as a threat. Each side must exert its will to survive. One must conquer, thus becoming the master.
The Coming Defeat of Communism turns Marxism-Leninism on its head: instead of rationalizing the inevitable victory of the proletariat, Burnham rationalizes the inevitable victory of democracy. Instead of calling the bourgeois class and their false ideas impediments to peace and progress, he says this of Marxists. Instead of trying to raise class consciousness against the evils of capitalism, he does so against communism. Instead of using propaganda to foment revolts against capitalism, he urges propaganda to foment revolts against communism. Instead of demanding that an elite leadership guide the masses against capitalism, he demands that elites in Eastern Europe inspire the masses against communism. Marx had argued that war raged in society (whether people recognized it or not) between the bourgeoisie and the workers. Burnham now argues that war raged between the Soviets and Americans, whether or not Americans wanted to acknowledge it. Instead of trying to provoke divides in American society in an effort to destroy her, he wanted to divide Soviet leadership in an effort to bust the Soviet system.
The Coming Defeat of Communism may be the most prescient book of the early Cold War era. Burnham does not just describe communism's weakness or predict its defeat. He delineates the ways it would falter. First, he predicts that a divide in Soviet leadership that would precede the fall of communism.70 Second, he describes how Catholic Church opposition would undermine communism.71 Third, he foretells the crucial role that satellite states would play in provoking the collapse of the Soviet Union. Finally, Burnham describes the role that American use of power—both and hard and soft—would play in contributing to its collapse.72
Burnham's Cold War polemic found its target audience, both at home and abroad. For example, the book struck a chord with Ewert Freiherr von Dellingshausen, a member of West Germany's Department of All-German Affairs.73 With help from the CIA, this group provided covert support for rollback groups in the hopes of achieving reunification. It intended to be a guiding light for those on the other side of the Iron Curtain.74 And its leading members believed that psychological warfare was critical. Von Dellingshausen asserted the importance of “coordinating all tactical measures of psychological warfare” with potential dissidents in East Germany.75 The agency used balloons to smuggle anticommunist propaganda across the Iron Curtain.76
According to a scholarly review of The Coming Defeat of Communism, “This polemic, like Mr. Burnham's earlier works, is being much discussed and is exceedingly influential.”77 Historian John P. Diggins wrote that by the time of the Korean War in 1950, Burnham's writings “had considerable influence in the State Department, the Pentagon, and the Central Intelligence Agency, especially among those officials who wanted to oppose the policy of containment with a new strategy of liberation-rollback.”78 Burnham was now one of America's leading Cold Warriors.
The New York Times promoted Burnham and his new book. Its first review describes the author as “the leading exponent of the Don’t-just-stand-there-do-something school at the moment.”79 In a second review, James Reston contends that Burnham's view of the Cold War was too simplistic because Tito showed that different forms of communism existed, so one aggressive policy could not suffice. Fearing Burnham's prescriptions could lead to war, the journalist reminds the reader of Burnham's failed predictions in The Managerial Revolution and his past support for some communist policies during the 1930s as a Trotskyite.80 The next week Burnham was interviewed by a New York Times journalist, Harvey Breit: “Tall, slim, 44 years old, a good Midwesterner as well as a Princeton and Oxford man, Mr. Burnham is gifted with a persuasively logical mind that makes even his most questionable opinions seem obvious and inevitable.”81 Burnham contends that the main point of his book was to convince the reader that if the United States adopted a consistent, forceful policy against the Soviet Union, the communist empire could not survive. The Soviet Union was weak and could not withstand American moral, political, and military force. Negotiating with communists was pointless because you could not compromise with someone who wanted to conquer you. When reminded that many of his past predictions had failed to materialize, Burnham retorts that many of his predictions had come true. He compares himself to a baseball player who did not bat a thousand but was still a pretty good player.
Burnham's aggressive approach seemed to be an alternative to Kennan's containment policy. Geopolitically, Kennan too fashioned himself an international realist. He recognized that the United States would have to use power to thwart communism. The two men differed in how the United States should use its power, with Burnham arguing for aggressive rollback and Kennan favoring containment.82 The Washington Post compared the two writers in a piece called “Burnham versus Kennan.”83 It began by noting that Washington, DC, was divided into two camps: Burnhamites and Kennanists. The former's views in The Coming Defeat of Communism were “current staples of conversation at Washington salons and dinner tables and in the offices of the Pentagon.”84 Burnham declares that to defeat communism, the United States must employ the same offensive tactics that the communists employed. The article lauds Burnham's “incisive logic” and wonders what type of world would emerge out of the ashes of communism in Eastern Europe.
The Coming Defeat of Communism may have helped inspire National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68). According to its primary author, Paul Nitze, the drafting of the document began in mid-February 1950, right after Burnham's book appeared.85 NSC-68 held that the fundamental goal of the Kremlin “is to retain and solidify their absolute power, first in the Soviet Union and second in the areas now under their control. In the minds of the Soviet leaders, however, achievement of this design requires the dynamic extension of their authority and the ultimate elimination of any effective opposition to their authority.”86 Guided by a “fanatical faith, antithetical to our own,” Soviet leaders viewed the United States as their foremost obstacle to world conquest.87 The council requested a significant increase in military spending, recommended strengthening the American nuclear arsenal, and recommended aid to any country facing Soviet encroachment. Another American goal should be to “place the maximum strain on the Soviet structure of power and particularly on the relationships between Moscow and the satellite countries.”88
Several months after NSC-68 was created, North Korea invaded South Korea. The United States sent military forces to protect the South Korea. The Cold War, as Burnham had predicted, turned violent. And the United States was not passive. The New York Times reported that “like the war that ended in 1945, this also is a war of liberation.”89 Burnham had to have approved of the means and the ends.
John Foster Dulles published War or Peace in April 1950. The future secretary of state certainly read Burnham's works. In his award-winning biography of Dulles, Townsend Hoopes emphasizes the significance of Burnham's Containment or Liberation by stating that it reinforced “arguments of those who already saw inadequacy in a purely defensive American response.”90 It provided inspiration for “liberation-rollback” against what seemed to be a “house of cards.”91 Like The Managerial Revolution and The Struggle for the World, Dulles's War or Peace begins with “The Problem.” In contrast, The Struggle for the World ends with “What Will Be Done,” whereas War or Peace concludes with “What Needs to Be Done.” Dulles contends that war was probable “unless by positive and well-directed efforts we fend it off.”92 But he refutes Burnham by arguing that, under certain circumstances, conferences and agreements could succeed in promoting peace and weakening the USSR. Dulles cites the 1949 conference with the Soviets in Paris at which the Soviets and Americans reached an agreement to lift the Soviet blockade of Berlin. Dulles defends the agreements by insisting that Americans did not sacrifice honor or interests.93 For the diplomat, negotiations could yield victories.
Dulles also continues Burnham's habit of “keeping score,” and he came to the same conclusion: the United States was losing the Cold War. In a chapter titled “The Five Year Score,” Dulles argues that that the Soviets had suffered some losses in Berlin and Yugoslavia, where Tito began pursuing an independent course from Stalin. And more often than not, the United Nations thwarted the Soviets. But these needed to be measured against communist gains in Eastern Europe, Central Europe, and Asia. Communist parties were making inroads in Africa and Latin America, too. On the whole, Dulles maintains, the Soviet were winning the Cold War. Their plusses outnumbered their minuses by a large margin.94 For Dulles, and Burnham, more needed to be done.