Abstract
In “A Lapsed Progressive”, Milne points out that Walter Lippmann’s first foray into foreign affairs, advising President Wilson as part of the “Inquiry”, ended badly, as he fell out with Wilsonian universalism. Instead, Lippmann returned to the pragmatism that William James had taught him at Harvard. While the historian and political scientist Charles Beard moved toward autarky, or “continental Americanism”, the rise of fascism in Europe affected Lippmann differently. Lippmann turned to a variant on realism that was best captured in two books, US Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic and US War Aims, which argued that US foreign policy must place American interests ahead of unrealizable abstractions. In the post-war era, this meant maintaining a working relationship with Stalin’s Soviet Union. Lippmann assumed permanent trends in the structure of world affairs. He overlearned the lessons of Wilson’s failure at the Paris Peace Conference. For Stalin was not simply motivated by narrow self-interest—ideology mattered too.
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- 1.
See “The Reminiscences of Walter Lippmann,” Columbia University Rare Books Library, New York City (hereafter CURBL), 178.
- 2.
Vladislav M. Zubok’s Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: University of North Caroline Press, 2008) is particularly effective in tracing the way in which ideology influenced Stalin’s ambitions. Geoffrey Roberts’ Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008) lends support to Lippmann’s portrayal of Stalin as a pragmatic and rational actor.
- 3.
Walter Lippmann to Van Wyck Brooks, February 5, 1914, Papers of Van Wyck Brooks, University of Pennsylvania Rare Books Library, Folder 1662.
- 4.
On pragmatism and foreign policy, see Molly Cochran, “A pragmatist perspective on ethical foreign policy”, in Karen E. Smith and Margot Light, Ethics and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
- 5.
Ibid., 72.
- 6.
Walter Lippmann to Felix Frankfurter, August 2, 1914, Box 10, Folder 418, Yale University Library (hereafter YUL).
- 7.
“The Reminiscences of Walter Lippmann,” CURBL, 89.
- 8.
“The Reminiscences of Walter Lippmann,” CURBL, 90.
- 9.
Walter Lippmann, “The Defense of the Atlantic World,” The New Republic, February 17, 1917. The historian Mary Beard recorded her appreciation for the article in a warm letter to Lippmann. She wrote that it “is superb. Better than ever before you have proved your leadership. I have been liking the New Republic immensely recently”. Mary Beard to Walter Lippmann, February 19, 1917, Box 3, Folder 125, YUL.
- 10.
“The Reminiscences of Walter Lippmann,” CURBL, 17.
- 11.
Walter Lippmann to Graham Wallas, November 4, 1920, Box 33, Folder 1246, YUL.
- 12.
“The Reminiscences of Walter Lippmann,” CURBL, 19–20.
- 13.
Dewey, Beard, and Lippmann are expertly discussed in Thomas Bender, New York Intellect: A History of Intellectual Life in New York City from 1750 to the Beginnings of Our Own Time (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987).
- 14.
Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow,” International Herald Tribune, August 1, 1932.
- 15.
Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow ,” International Herald Tribune, April 6, 1933.
- 16.
Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow ,” International Herald Tribune, May 17, 1934.
- 17.
Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow ,” International Herald Tribune, May 12, 1933.
- 18.
Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow ,” International Herald Tribune, December 24, 1936.
- 19.
Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow ,” International Herald Tribune, December 2, 1937.
- 20.
Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow ,” International Herald Tribune, October 16, 1937.
- 21.
Louis Johnson [Assistant Secretary of War] to Walter Lippmann, December 22, 1938, Box 80, Folder 1160, YUL.
- 22.
Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow ,” International Herald Tribune, June 15, 1940.
- 23.
Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow ,” International Herald Tribune, December 19, 1940.
- 24.
Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow ,” International Herald Tribune, February 12, 1942. Also see Steel, Walter Lippmann, 394–395.
- 25.
Walter Lippmann to John M. Vorys, February 17, 1941. In Blum, Public Philosopher, 404.
- 26.
Walter Lippmann to Wendell Willkie, July 30, 1940. In Blum, Public Philosopher, 395.
- 27.
“The Reminiscences of Walter Lippmann,” CURBL, 196.
- 28.
“The Reminiscences of Walter Lippmann,” CURBL, 204.
- 29.
“The Reminiscences of Walter Lippmann,” CURBL, 215.
- 30.
“The Reminiscences of Walter Lippmann,” CURBL, 215.
- 31.
Pamphlet Collection, J. Stalin , Speeches Delivered at Meetings of Voters of the Stalin Electoral District, Moscow (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1950), 23.
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Milne, D. (2017). A Lapsed Progressive: Walter Lippmann and US Foreign Policy, 1914–1945. In: Cochran, M., Navari, C. (eds) Progressivism and US Foreign Policy between the World Wars. The Palgrave Macmillan History of International Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58432-8_12
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