Charles E. Bohlen Quotes
There is no such thing as an expert on Russia. There are only people with varying degrees of ignorance.
Charles E. ‘Chip’ Bohlen, 1904–1974 U. S. Ambassador to Russia, France and the Phillipenes, Quoted on PBS News Hour, February 31, 2014
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The Russians had invaded Afghanistan and, like the earlier invaders who had also failed, they did not understand the people or their culture. (See {634659}). They tried to impose a centralized Communist government, not realizing that the Afghanistan people were not experienced with any kind of central government. There was some tribal structure but that was mostly a traditional consensus process. Most Afghan men were the “kings” of their own families and did not respond to any other governance though they can be nfluenced by tribal leaders, warlords, and imams.
This quotation illustrates White’s extreme naivety about Stalinist Russia. At the time the Soviet Union had been backing communist insurgencies blatantly in China, Greece, and Korea for example. Most historians agree that White passed classified information to the Russians. He was accused of being a Communist, but there was never any evidence of that. Some people believe that he was a spy for the Russians and committed espionage, but others disagree observing that White was very much his own man and felt that much information that was classified never should have been. White substituted his own judgment, it is believed, about what could be given to the Russians. He was an admirer of what Russian socialism had accomplished economically, educationally and medically since the 1917 revolution deposing the Czar. Russia had been a valuable military ally, which had taken the brunt of both military and civilian casualties in WWII. White’s economics were certainly not Marxist but very much Keynesian. He was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee where he was accused of being a Communist which he denied (see {634907}). He died of a heart attack 3 days later.
3rd Earl Russell of Kingston
This quotation describes an embarassng shortcoming of our American body politic.
Charles "Chip" Eustis Bohlen was an American diplomat, ambassador, and expert on the Soviet Union. He helped shape US foreign policy during World War II and the Cold War and helped develop the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. In 1934, he served as a diplomat in the first US embassy to the Soviet Union in Moscow as well as during and after World War II. He succeeded George F. Kennan as ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1957. He served as ambassador to the Philippines from 1957 to 1959 and to France from 1962 to 1968. He was an advisor to every U.S. President from 1943 to 1968 and one of the nonpartisan foreign policy advisers who were known colloquially as "The Wise Men."
