马歇尔·格林：美国的亚洲先生
马歇尔·格林：美国的亚洲先生
MARSHALL GREEN: AMERICA'S MR ASIA
https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/marshall-green-americas-mr-asia
詹姆斯·柯伦教授詹姆斯·柯伦教授
悉尼大学近代史教授
1965 年，马歇尔·格林作为新上任的美国驻印度尼西亚大使抵达雅加达后不久，就在苏加诺总统主持的外交招待会上担任贵宾。在过去的几年里，这位印度尼西亚领导人加强了他的民族主义言论，将人们的注意力从苦苦挣扎的经济上转移开来，转而试图将一个分布广泛且难以驾驭的政治共同体凝聚在一起。对西方观察家来说最令人担忧的是印度尼西亚共产党日益增长的权力，当时它是除莫斯科和北京之外的第三大党。苏加诺成功地要求将前荷兰领土西新几内亚归还印度尼西亚，然后开始对新马来西亚联邦采取敌对的对抗政策，认为这是新帝国主义包围印度尼西亚的阴谋。
格林在这一场合的讲话是在华盛顿精心准备的，必然会尽量克制地关注两国关系中的积极因素。演讲结束后，苏加诺挺身而出，“对美国的外交政策进行了猛烈抨击”。尽管很想离开房间，格林还是决定留下来，然后被介绍给了主要客人。其中一位是印度尼西亚外交部高级官员苏佩尼夫人，据说她是总统的众多情妇之一。格林看到了他向苏加诺还击的机会，附近的麦克风将他的回击传到了房间的其他地方。“苏佩尼夫人”，他滔滔不绝地说，“很高兴见到你。你知道，我有着美丽的乌黑头发、闪闪发亮的眼睛和绿色纱丽，我真的无法记住总统在最近的讲话中所说的话。你能告诉我他说了什么吗？” 一阵死一般的沉默后，苏加诺一拍大腿放声大笑，让在场的外交官们长长地舒了一口气。
作为战后美国最有天赋的亚洲问题专家和政策制定者之一，马歇尔·格林以他的机智和善于幽默应对的天赋而自豪。他的外交回忆录甚至带有“回忆与幽默”的副标题，并收录了无数的情节，正如一位国务院同事曾回忆的那样，他的笑话能够“缓解尴尬的紧张局势，在对立的谈判代表之间营造更友好的气氛，或者打破空话”。
毫无疑问，格林在找到最接近的双关语时找到了一种孩子气的快乐。但幽默也可能是释放压力的一种方式。毕竟，从第二次世界大战开始到 1970 年代后期，他的外交生涯几乎完全花在了美国亚洲政策的幕后工作上。这是该地区非同寻常的转型时期，新发现的民族主义主张与长期贫困和快速经济发展相冲突。格林处于独特的位置，可以观察民族自信和现代化这两种力量如何塑造东亚的新动力。作为强调限制美国实力的尼克松学说的背景简报的作者，以及美国对华政策重塑的关键参与者，他的职业生涯为学者们提供了一个独特的视角，让他们了解华盛顿如何通过谈判从僵化的、意识形态的冷战两极格局过渡到 1970 年代初出现的新的、更加流动的世界。在此过程中，他本人经历了某种转变，从坚定的美式和平倡导者转变为公开怀疑华盛顿权力的范围和范围。
出现在如此多的地区热点意味着格林获得了亚洲“麻烦射手”的美誉。1958年台海冲突期间，任国务卿约翰·福斯特·杜勒斯的危机处理员；作为 1960-61 年驻韩国使团副团长，他目睹了学生起义和韩国总统李承晚垮台，随后发生军事政变，推翻了民选政府并任命了朴正熙总统。作为驻香港总领事——当时该任务是政府对中国的“耳目”——当成千上万的中国难民涌入香港时，格林亲眼目睹了大跃进的悲惨后果。
1960 年代初，他被召回华盛顿领导对美国对华政策的审查，建议放宽贸易和旅行限制。在印度尼西亚，他第一次担任大使，格林目睹了苏加诺和他的亲共追随者被苏哈托取代，苏哈托明确表示欢迎外国投资，并采取与区域伙伴更加合作的立场。格林随后于 1969 年至 1973 年担任负责东亚和太平洋事务的助理国务卿，这段时间见证了冲绳回归日本、轰炸北越、巴黎和平协定和理查德尼克松访问北京。正如一位美国官员当时所说，当两国关系“严重失调”时，他担任驻澳大利亚大使。
格林的背景或教育并没有为他在东亚的长期服务做好准备。在整个教育过程中，他没有接触过亚洲语言或文化。他自称是“小新英格兰人”，小时候经常和父母一起去欧洲旅行度过暑假。
他先后在著名的格罗顿学校和耶鲁大学接受教育，1939 年 10 月，美国驻日本大使约瑟夫·格鲁 (Joseph Grew) 需要一名私人秘书，他的职业生涯第一次中断。格林得到了这份工作，开始对这个国家产生终生的迷恋。当他看着乌云在东北亚聚集时，格林承认自己正在“宠坏”与日本开战。他游历了日本占领的朝鲜、满洲和中国北部，亲眼目睹了“日本军事统治的残酷”。这段经历也迫使他思考自己国家的普遍情绪。大约在这个时候，格林写信给他的母亲，对美国辩论中的孤立主义压力表示遗憾。美国人已经“对我们继承的好运感到过度幽默。在其他国家的年轻人咄咄逼人的地方，我们正在退缩，而我们的厄运，就像希腊和罗马文明一样，当我们在衰落的岁月中产生不愿为自己拥有的东西而战的人时，它就被密封了。” 格林于 1941 年 5 月离开日本并参战，在美国海军服役期间担任情报官，在学习日语后担任翻译。
第二次世界大战后进入外交部门，格林的第一个职位是新西兰惠灵顿的三等秘书，尽管他对美国在太平洋战争中的援助表示赞赏，但他注意到当地人对“祖国”的强烈支持，尤其是以向“压力重重的英格兰”大量出口初级产品的形式。
但对格林产生了深远影响的是日本：这个国家自称是贯穿他整个职业生涯的一根“线”。1948 年，国务卿乔治·马歇尔 (George Marshall) 派遣时任国务院政策规划负责人的乔治·凯南 (George Kennan) 前往日本执行一项特殊任务，而格林则是他唯一的旅伴和顾问。此访加速了美国政府的重点从占领转向经济复苏。格林说，这个想法是“尽可能快地使事情正常化，以避免对占领日益增长的民族主义怨恨”。格林形容听凯南的简报就像看到“人眼……洞穿永恒的深处”。
从那次经历中得出一个核心教训，指导格林自己应对亚洲民族主义兴起的大部分方法：美国需要帮助其地区盟友站稳脚跟并照顾好自己。后来，他密切参与了与日本共同安全条约的建议准备工作，并参与了有关美国基地在那里持续存在的谈判。在这里，格林也看到了国内政治的棘手如何对亲密的联盟关系造成严重破坏。在日本留下的“喧嚣”已经“在军事基地问题上激起了民心”。在 50 年代后期，他陪同助理国防部长弗兰克纳什执行总统任务的远东任务，以审查美国军事基地与其所在社区之间的关系问题。
尽管对当地问题具有这些敏感性，但格林仍然是他所处文化的产物，并且倾向于对盛行的冷战正统观念保持信心。他相信，如果印度尼西亚成为共产主义国家，“整个东南亚可能都会处于共产主义统治之下。” 对于在越南的美军，他争辩说，如果苏哈托没有获胜，共产党占领了印度尼西亚，美军“就会陷入一种巨大的胡桃夹子”：被夹在北亚和东南亚的共产主义叛乱之间。然而，在格林看来，印度尼西亚成为了某种典范，表明亚洲的解决方案可以解决亚洲的问题。或者，正如他几年后对尼克松所说的那样，印度尼西亚展示了“传统主义和情感民族主义”如何让位于“现代化和与其他国家的富有成效的关系”。
作为驻雅加达大使，格林给尼克松留下了良好的印象，在尼克松 1967 年访问雅加达期间，两人详细讨论了地区事务，当时尼克松正准备再次竞选总统。Once elected, the new president appointed Green as assistant secretary of state for East Asia, and immediately dispatched him to all corners of the region to take soundings from key allies. 他得到了一份广泛的简报：实际上是为了满足尼克松关于后越南亚洲可能是什么样子的想法——1967 年 10 月首次在外交事务中表达。格林在此次访问后的报告中指出，“我们提供帮助的能力在很大程度上取决于该地区的国家正在采取哪些行动来帮助自己和邻国。”
但没有要求美国离开的地区呼声，格林指出，“几乎所有东亚领导人都强调，美国过早或过度撤军可能会造成灾难性后果。” 然而，在来自越南的消息不断恶化和美国公众日益幻灭的气氛中，格林的信息找到了它的印记。正如他所写：
美国人觉得他们承担着不成比例的军事安全负担……在对美国很重要但又很遥远的地区。他们越来越频繁地询问其他国家正在做什么来帮助自己和互相帮助。对我们国内日益严重的问题的担忧加剧了这种情绪。
格林制定了后来被称为尼克松主义的基本参数——总统于 1969 年 7 月下旬在太平洋小岛关岛宣布。该声明确认美国不会卷入另一场陆战亚洲，而且，它的地区盟友不得不为自己的自卫提供更多。条约承诺将得到维持，但其影响是显而易见的：美国未来对该地区的参与将是一种不同的秩序。从本质上讲，关于关岛的声明是一个信号，表明美国正在放弃世界范围内的反共斗争。华盛顿不再是世界警察，美国的实力也已过时。
剔除一些冷战陈词滥调是这次调整的重要组成部分。大约在同一时间，尼克松在对美国驻亚洲使团负责人的私人讲话中透露，“越南战争的结束方式将对事件产生持久影响，尽管多米诺骨牌概念不一定有效。” 他最担心的是“我们应该不惜一切代价离开亚洲”的感觉，他拒绝了这种诱惑。他担心“不仅是退出越南的情绪升级，而且是退出世界的情绪升级。而这将是灾难性的。” 他强调，关键问题是“如何克服美国对越南的失望和对我们参与世界的日益增长的怀疑”。
尼克松正在摸索着用一种新的方式来谈论美国的作用，这种方式不太可能歌颂美国的卓越地位和主导地位。他罕见地向外交使团发出了响亮的号角，他补充说：“如果我在外交部门工作，我会选择亚洲服务……在亚洲，你比其他任何地方都有更多的机会来塑造事件的结果。这个地球。”
尼克松学说对澳大利亚领导人来说更加令人担忧，因为在没有美军驻扎在东南亚的情况下，澳大利亚又回到了越南战争之前的状态：即对什么样的保护非常不确定ANZUS 安全条约提供了它。然而，格林也将澳大利亚视为其他地区盟友的榜样。他在 1972 年告诉国务卿威廉·罗杰斯，“澳大利亚新的活力感可以用来利用澳大利亚的领导地位来加强区域凝聚力和自助，正如尼克松主义所体现的那样。” 这也是澳大利亚工党领袖高夫·惠特拉姆 (Gough Whitlam) 对美国声明的解读，
然而，惠特拉姆政府的选举在联盟关系中目睹了迅速而急剧的恶化，这是1972年12月的圣诞节爆炸案的高级劳工部长的严厉批评，但也是由于惠特拉姆撤出了其余的军事顾问来自越南并威胁要放弃东南亚条约组织。根据格林的说法，尼克松显然觉得“我们伟大、坚定的盟友选择了退出战争”。当时，据报道，在尼克松所谓的“狗屎名单”上，澳大利亚仅次于瑞典，总统下令任何助理国务卿或以上级别的人都不能会见任何澳大利亚官员，包括大使，然后詹姆斯·普利姆索尔爵士。重要的是要记住，这一时期的美国国家安全官员倾向于将澳大利亚关于外交政策的公开声明贴上“失态”或“怪诞”的标签。格林在他自己的家里拜访了普利姆索尔，从而规避了尼克松的禁令。
一些澳大利亚人将格林在 1973 年初被任命为新任美国大使视为某种“战利品”。“我们得到了马歇尔·格林”是外交事务部一位官员的吹嘘：毫无疑问，他更习惯于通常确保澳大利亚职位安全的总统助理和提包员通常的点名。其他人则认为这是“澳大利亚对美国态度转变的早期回报”。
但另一种解释更有说服力。格林和尼克松的国家安全顾问亨利·基辛格并不总是意见一致。格林在 1970 年反对美国地面入侵柬埔寨的想法对他的事业毫无帮助。最初被认为是下一个合乎逻辑的驻日本大使任命，格林却被派去处理澳大利亚问题。这两位政策制定者之间的紧张关系显然挥之不去。在 1995 年的一次口述历史采访中，格林评论说，基辛格“对东亚没有深入的了解——没有”，“他未能利用毕生致力于东亚工作的人们的专业知识，这是对东亚的一个巨大错误他的角色。他回忆说，被“排除在外”尤其成问题：“基辛格知道你没有全貌，因此他倾向于相应地诋毁你的观点。惠特拉姆认为，“基辛格对格林的专业知识和口才表示不满”，并辩称这一任命是为了解除这位外交官作为尼克松的另一个建议来源。尽管格林在抵达澳大利亚时大声疾呼自己专门为自己选择了堪培拉的职位，但在两个月内，他就在白宫基辛格的办公室里要求将他调回华盛顿。
格林请求回家的部分原因是他如此迅速地修补了有点摇摇欲坠的联盟篱笆。首先，在总统五个月来坚决拒绝向工党领袖开放椭圆形办公室后，他为惠特拉姆争取到一份非常珍贵的会见尼克松的邀请。此外，格林缓和了惠特拉姆对美国在澳大利亚基地的目的和功能的担忧。围绕亚洲政策的一系列争端和分歧继续扰乱两国关系。不过，从本质上讲，格林对他在 1960 年代末推荐的政策保持信心，即华盛顿和堪培拉不一定需要“步调一致，共同对抗黑暗势力”。
这本身证实了格林的接受——就像它对尼克松的接受一样——背离某些冷战正统观念必然涉及淡化过去夸张的言辞和使命。随着环境的变化，再也没有关于美国世纪的豪言壮语了。在担任驻澳大利亚大使期间，格林甚至直截了当地拒绝了约翰·肯尼迪就职演说中表达的美国负有促进全球自由的特殊使命的观点。格林承认，“很难想象一个更加详尽的宣布刚刚被最狭窄的总统选出的总统所说的世界的承诺”。而美国人会
......仍然希望履行这一信息的责任......我们已经看到一种表明美国的业务是世界领导地位的方法存在严重缺陷。领导力是要分享的。负担和责任是要分担的……任何一个国家都没有办法和能力承担所有这些责任；靠一己之力提供世界问题的答案和解决方案远远超出任何一个国家的智慧。
这也对联盟伙伴产生了影响。到 1975 年任期结束时，格林公开宣称哈罗德霍尔特的“与 LBJ 一路走好”的政策对澳大利亚来说是一个“彻头彻尾的尴尬”。但直到最后，他一直是分析师，他在 1974 年 10 月向英国高级专员表示，惠特拉姆政府在倒台之前还有“六个月到一年”的时间，因为它没有对抗通货膨胀的政策。尽管他相信继任的自由党-乡村党政府在这方面不会更成功，但他想知道这是否“会为之后更加极端的工党政府开辟道路”。它显示了惠特拉姆的经历对美国外交思想的刺痛程度。
1975 年 7 月，格林在给基辛格的秘密信中用一句话总结了他在过去两年中遇到的政策困境的本质：“我们在澳大利亚最大的问题之一”，他沉思道，是“自满。矛盾的是，印度支那的崩溃、通货膨胀和失业使澳大利亚人越来越意识到他们对外部发展的依赖以及对美国的依赖。” 惠特拉姆政府“在其观点上成熟了”。但这也说明了某些美国人对惠特拉姆及其意图的误读。这表明美国在亚洲鼓励民族自力更生有其局限性。惠特拉姆从未提倡废除联盟，但华盛顿的许多人认为他的政策即使不是轻率的反美主义，也是对中立的危险挑逗。
那么，在当今易燃的东北亚事务世界中，马歇尔·格林能提供什么指导呢？前国家安全顾问兹比格涅夫·布热津斯基 (Zbigniew Brzezinski) 最近指出，媒体将奥巴马对亚洲外交政策的再平衡描述为“支点”（并明确提醒总统本人从未使用过该词）忽略了这一点，即它“只是意味着建设性地重申美国既是太平洋强国又是大西洋强国这一不变的现实。” 情况可能如此，但几乎没有人会怀疑华盛顿和堪培拉的政策制定者因中国崛起而面临的挑战与美国过去面临的挑战不同。白宫仍然面临着一系列同样令人生畏的地区性热点——尤其是朝鲜的武力威胁，持续的中日对立，以及挥之不去的印巴紧张局势。此外，现代化的心理和政治影响及其对民族主义的影响，在整个亚洲仍在发挥着重要作用。
格林看到了这个问题的两面：正如这种新的民族自信精神可以成为凝聚力一样，毛泽东、李承晚和苏加诺等亚洲领导人的分裂性民族主义也可以用来残酷地巩固权力。外树敌国。
在美国外交关系的关键时刻，马歇尔·格林认识到美国在亚洲能发挥的最佳作用不是巡回警察，而是稳定器。这是许多地区盟友今天期待华盛顿发挥的作用，尽管现在和那时一样，美国首先需要倾向于应对紧迫的国内挑战。当然，过去的任何官僚生涯、演讲或总统学说都不能指明前进的方向：历史总是出人意表。但是，如果对战后时代美国区域拥抱的历史以及制定其路线的人有更确切的了解，肯定可以照亮这条道路。
詹姆斯·柯伦教授詹姆斯·柯伦教授
悉尼大学近代史教授
James Curran 之前是美国研究中心的非常驻高级研究员。他是悉尼大学现代史教授，专攻澳大利亚和美国外交关系史。他最近的一本书，Unholy Fury: Whitlam and Nixon at War，研究了从 1951 年签署 ANZUS 条约到霍克政府初期的澳美联盟。
首次发表
2013 年 7 月 2 日，美国评论，美国复兴（2013 年第 12 期）。
Not long after his arrival in Jakarta in 1965 as the freshly minted American Ambassador to Indonesia, Marshall Green was the guest of honour at a diplomatic reception hosted by President Sukarno. In the preceding years, the Indonesian leader had ramped up his nationalist rhetoric, diverting attention from a struggling economy in an effort to try to hold a far-flung and fractious political community together. Most alarmingly for Western observers was the growing power of the Indonesian Communist Party, then the third largest outside Moscow and Peking. Sukarno had succeeded in his demands to have the former Dutch territory of West New Guinea returned to Indonesia and had then embarked on a hostile policy of confrontation towards the new Malaysian Federation, believing it to be a neoimperialist plot to encircle Indonesia. He had also called for a Peking–Jakarta axis, a move that had Washington, and Canberra, even more alarmed.
Green’s remarks for the occasion had been carefully prepared in Washington and necessarily tried to keep a somewhat restrained focus on the positives in the relationship. After the speech, Sukarno stepped forward and “delivered a terrific blast against American foreign policy”. Although tempted to leave the room, Green decided to stay, and was then introduced to the leading guests. One, a senior Indonesian Foreign Office official, Madame Supeni, was reputedly one of the president’s many mistresses. Green saw his chance to return fire at Sukarno, a nearby microphone carrying his riposte to the rest of the room. “Madame Supeni”, he gushed, “It’s a great pleasure to meet you. You know with that beautiful raven hair and flashing eyes and green sari I really couldn’t keep my mind on what the president was saying in his recent remarks. Could you tell me what he said?” After a deadly silence, Sukarno slapped his thigh and laughed uproariously, causing the entire diplomatic congregation to emit a prolonged sigh of relief.
One of America’s most gifted Asia experts and policymakers in the post-war period, Marshall Green prided himself on his quick wit and gift for comic repartee. His diplomatic memoirs even bore the subtitle “Recollections and humor” and featured countless episodes where his jokes, as a State Department colleague once recalled, were able to “relieve awkward tension, induce a more friendly mood between opposing negotiators, or cut through windy rhetoric”.
There can be no question that Green found a kind of boyish joy in reaching for the nearest pun. But humour might also have been a way of releasing the pressure. After all, his was a diplomatic career spent almost entirely at the coalface of America’s Asia policy from the beginning of the Second World War to the late 1970s. This was a period of extraordinary transformation in the region, in which the assertion of newfound nationalism jostled with chronic poverty and rapid economic development. Green was uniquely placed to observe the way in which these two forces, national self-assertion and modernisation, were shaping a new dynamic in East Asia. As the author of the background brief which informed the Nixon doctrine emphasising limits to American power, and a key player in the remaking of US China policy, his career offers scholars a unique insight into how Washington negotiated the transition from the rigid, ideological bipolarity of the Cold War to the new, more fluid world that emerged in the early 1970s. Along the way, he himself underwent something of a transformation, from staunch advocate of a Pax Americana to open skeptic about the reach and range of Washington’s power.
Being present at so many regional flashpoints meant that Green acquired something of a reputation as an Asian “trouble shooter”. During the Taiwan Strait conflict in 1958, he served as crisis manager for secretary of state John Foster Dulles; as deputy head of mission in Korea in 1960–61 he observed the students uprising and the downfall of South Korean president Syngman Rhee, followed by a military coup d’état which overthrew a democratically elected government and installed President Park Chung-hee. And as consul general in Hong Kong — when that mission was the administration’s “eyes and ears” on China — Green witnessed the tragic aftermath of the Great Leap Forward when thousands of Chinese refugees swarmed into Hong Kong.
In the early 1960s, he was recalled to Washington to lead a review of American China policy, where he recommended the easing of trade and travel restrictions. In Indonesia, his first posting as ambassador, Green watched as Sukarno and his pro-communist followers were replaced by Suharto, who made it clear that foreign investment would be welcomed and a more cooperative stance with regional partners adopted. Green then served as assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs from 1969 to 1973, a period which saw the return of Okinawa to Japan, the bombing of North Vietnam, the Paris Peace Accords and Richard Nixon’s trip to Peking. And he was ambassador in Australia when the relationship, as one American official put it at the time, was “seriously out of whack”.
There was nothing in Green’s background or education that had prepared him for his long service in East Asia. Throughout his education he had no exposure to Asian languages or cultures. A self professed “little New Englander”, he often spent his summer holidays as a child travelling with his parents in Europe.
Educated at the prestigious Groton school and then Yale, his first career break came in October 1939 when the US ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, needed a private secretary. Green got the job, and a lifelong fascination with the country began. As he watched the storm clouds gather in North-East Asia, Green confessed to be “spoiling” to go to war with Japan. He travelled through Japanese occupied Korea, Manchuria, and northern China, seeing first hand the “ruthlessness of Japanese military rule”. The experience also forced him to think about the prevailing mood in his own country. Writing to his mother around this time, Green deplored the isolationist strain in the US debate. Americans had become “over humoured by the good fortune to which we have fallen heir. Where the youth of other lands are aggressive, we are retracting, and our doom, like that of the Greek and Roman civilisations, is sealed when we produce, in our declining years, men not willing to fight for what they have.” Green left Japan in May 1941 and joined the war effort, serving for the duration in the US Navy as an intelligence officer and, after learning Japanese, as an interpreter.
Entering the foreign service proper after World War II, Green’s first posting was as third secretary to Wellington, New Zealand, where despite an appreciation for America’s assistance in the Pacific War, he noted the strong pull of local sentiment back towards the “mother country”, especially in the form of bulk exports of primary products to a “hard-pressed England”.
But it was Japan that had profoundly influenced Green: the country was to become a self-declared “thread” throughout his career. In 1948, secretary of state George Marshall sent George Kennan, then head of policy planning in the state department, on a special mission to Japan, along with Green as his sole travelling companion and adviser. The visit resulted in the acceleration of the US government’s shift in emphasis from occupation to economic recovery. The idea, Green said, was to “normalise things as far and as fast as one could to stave off growing, nationalist resentment against the occupation”. Green described listening to Kennan’s briefings as like seeing a “human eye ... piercing into the depths of eternity”. Kennan had also taken issue with the policy of routinely “purging” those sections of the Japanese business or political elite who had been in any way responsible for the war effort, arguing that each case should be dealt with individually.
Out of that experience came a central lesson that was to guide much of Green’s own approach to the rise of Asian nationalism: there was a need for the US to help its regional allies stand on their own two feet and take care of themselves. Later, he was intimately involved in preparing the recommendations for a mutual security treaty with Japan and in the negotiations relating to the ongoing presence of American bases there. Here too Green saw how the prickliness of domestic politics could wreak their own havoc on close alliance relationships. A “vociferous” left in Japan had “whipped the people up on the military base issue”. In the late 1950s he accompanied Frank Nash, assistant secretary of defence, on the far eastern leg of a presidential mission to examine the issue of relations between US military bases and their host communities.
Despite these sensitivities to local issues, Green nevertheless was a creature of his culture, and prone to keeping faith with the prevailing Cold War orthodoxies. Had Indonesia gone communist, he believed, “all South-East Asia might have come under Communist domination.” With American forces in Vietnam, he argued that had Suharto not prevailed and the communists taken Indonesia, US troops “would have been caught in a kind of huge nutcracker”: squeezed between communist insurgencies in north and South-East Asia. In Green’s view, however, Indonesia became something of a model, showing that Asian solutions could solve Asian problems. Or, as he put it to Nixon some years later, Indonesia showed how “traditionalism and emotional nationalism” could give way to “modernisation and productive relationships with other countries.” Green emerged from that posting convinced that a much lighter American footprint in Asia was required, along with an acceptance that the US could not control every situation.
As ambassador in Jakarta, Green had made a favourable impression on Nixon, and the two had discussed regional affairs at length during Nixon’s visit there in 1967 as he geared up for another tilt at the presidency. Once elected, the new president appointed Green as assistant secretary of state for East Asia, and immediately dispatched him to all corners of the region to take soundings from key allies. He was given a wide brief: in effect to give content to Nixon’s ideas — first expressed in Foreign Affairs in October 1967 — about what a post-Vietnam Asia might look like. Green’s report following that mission observed that “our ability to help will depend to an important extent upon what countries of the area are doing to help themselves and their neighbours.”
But there was no regional clamour for the US to leave, Green noting that “virtually all East Asian leaders stressed that premature or excessive withdrawal of US strength could prove disastrous.” Yet in a climate of worsening news from Vietnam and growing public disillusionment in America, Green’s message found its mark. As he wrote:
Americans feel that they are carrying a disproportionate share of the burden for military security ... in areas which, while important to the US, are nevertheless distant. They are asking more and more frequently what other countries are doing to help themselves and to help each other. This mood is intensified by concern over our deepening problems at home.
Green had set out the basic parameters of what would come to be known as the Nixon doctrine — pronounced by the president on the tiny Pacific island of Guam in late July 1969. That statement affirmed that the US would not get involved in another land war in Asia and, moreover, that its regional allies had to provide more for their own self-defence. Treaty commitments would be maintained, but the implications were clear: future American involvement in the region would be of a different order. In essence, the statement on Guam was a signal that the US was abandoning the worldwide struggle against communism. Washington could no longer be the world’s policeman, and American power was beyond its prime.
Culling some Cold War shibboleths was part and parcel of this adjustment. In a private address to American chiefs of mission in Asia around the same time, Nixon himself confided that “the way the war ends in Vietnam will have an enduring impact on events, although the domino concept is not necessarily valid.” What concerned him the most was the feeling that “we should get out of Asia at all costs”, a temptation he rejected. He feared an “escalation of not just get-out-of- Vietnam sentiment but-get-of the-world sentiment. And this would be disastrous.” The key issue, he stressed, was “how to overcome US disenchantment with Vietnam and growing doubts about our involvement in the world.”
Nixon was feeling his way towards a new way of speaking about America’s role, one that was less prone to singing the praises of US pre-eminence and predominance. In something of a rare clarion call to the diplomatic corps, he added: “If I were in the foreign service, I would choose Asia to serve in ... In Asia you have more opportunity to shape the outcome of events than anywhere else on this globe.”
The Nixon doctrine was all the more alarming to Australian leaders because without the presence of US troops on the ground in South-East Asia, Australia was back to where it had been prior to the Vietnam war: namely profoundly uncertain about what kind of protection the ANZUS security treaty afforded it. Yet Green also saw Australia as something of an exemplar for other regional allies. “The new sense of vigour in Australia” he told secretary of state William Rogers in 1972, “can be used to advantage in utilising Australia’s leadership to strengthen regional cohesion and self-help as visualised in the Nixon doctrine.” And this too was how Australian Labor Party leader Gough Whitlam had interpreted the American statement, seeing it as an opportunity for Australia to shed the “stultifying” rigidities of the Cold War and define a more independent role for the nation within and without the US alliance.
And yet the election of the Whitlam government witnessed a rapid and dramatic deterioration in the alliance relationship, typified by the strident criticism by senior Labor ministers of the December 1972 Christmas bombings, but also on account of the fact that Whitlam pulled out the remaining military advisers from Vietnam and threatened to abandon the South-East Asia Treaty Organization. According to Green, Nixon apparently felt as if “our great, staunch ally had opted out of the war.” At the time, Australia was reported to be second only to Sweden on Nixon’s so-called “shit-list”, and the president ordered that nobody at the rank of assistant secretary or above could meet with any Australian officials, including the ambassador, then Sir James Plimsoll. It is important to recall that American national security officials in this period were prone to label Australian public statements on foreign policy as “gaffes” or “monstrosities”. Green circumvented Nixon’s ban by visiting Plimsoll at his own house.
Some Australians treated Green’s appointment as the new American ambassador in early 1973 as something of a “trophy”. ”We got Marshall Green” was the boast of one official in the foreign affairs department: more used, no doubt, to the usual roll call of presidential associates and bag handlers that normally secured the Australian post. Others saw it as an “early pay off from Australia’s changed attitude towards the US.”
But another explanation is more convincing. Green and Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, did not always see eye to eye. Green’s opposition to the idea of a US ground invasion of Cambodia in 1970 hardly helped his cause. Originally thought to be the next logical appointment as ambassador in Japan, Green was instead sent to handle the Australian problem. The tension between these two policymakers clearly lingered. In an oral history interview in 1995, Green remarked that Kissinger had no “depth of knowledge about East Asia — none” and that “his failure to draw upon the expertise of people who had spent their lives working on East Asia was a great mistake on his part.” He recalled that being “cut out of things” was particularly problematic: “Kissinger knew that you didn’t have the complete picture, and therefore he tended to discredit your views accordingly.” Whitlam believed that “Kissinger resented Green’s professional expertise and verbal brilliance”, contending that the appointment was to remove the diplomat as another source of advice to Nixon. Although Green made all the right noises when he arrived in Australia about having specifically chosen the Canberra post for himself, within two months he was in Kissinger’s office in the White House requesting that he be reassigned back to Washington.
Green’s plea to come home reflected in part the fact that he had so quickly mended a somewhat rickety alliance fence. First, he had secured Whitlam a much-prized invitation to see Nixon, after the president had for five months steadfastly refused to open the Oval Office to the Labor leader. Moreover, Green had assuaged Whitlam’s concerns about the purpose and function of American bases in Australia. A series of disputes and divergences over Asia policy continued to rile relations. In essence, though, Green kept faith with the policy he had recommended in the late 1960s, namely that Washington and Canberra need not necessarily march together “in lock-step, against the forces of darkness”.
That in itself confirmed Green’s acceptance — as it had for Nixon — that the turning away from certain Cold war orthodoxies necessarily involved toning down the grandiloquent rhetoric and missions of the past. With the changing circumstances, there could be no more lofty rhetoric about an American century. During his tenure as ambassador in Australia, Green even pointedly rejected the notion, as expressed in John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, that America had a special mission to promote freedom across the globe. Green confessed that it was “hard to conceive of a more sweeping declaration of commitment to the world spoken by a president just elected by the narrowest of margins.” While Americans would
...still wish to carry out the burden of this message ... we have come to see a serious flaw in an approach that suggests the business of America is world leadership. Leadership is to be shared. Burdens and responsibilities are to be shared ... it is far beyond the means and capabilities of any one country to shoulder all these responsibilities; and it is far beyond the wisdom of any one country to supply by itself the answers and solutions to world problems.
That too had consequences for alliance partners. By the end of his posting in 1975, Green had declared publicly that Harold Holt’s policy of “All the way with LBJ” was a “downright embarrassment” to Australia. But to the very end, he was ever the analyst, opining to the British High Commissioner in October 1974 that the Whitlam government had “from six months to a year” before it would fall, since it had no policy to combat inflation. Although he believed a successor Liberal–Country party government would be no more successful in this regard, he wondered whether it “would open the way to a much more extreme Labor government thereafter”. It showed how much the Whitlam experience had stung the American diplomatic mind.
Writing confidentially to Kissinger in July 1975, Green summarised in one sentence the essence of the policy dilemma he had encountered over the previous two years: “one of our biggest problems in Australia”, he mused, was “complacency. Paradoxically, the Indochina debacle, inflation, and unemployment have helped make Australians increasingly aware of their dependence on outside developments and of their reliance upon the United States.” The Whitlam government had “providentially matured in its views.” But this too spoke to a certain American misreading of Whitlam and his intentions. It showed that America’s encouragement of national self-reliance in Asia had its own limits. Whitlam never advocated the abrogation of the alliance, yet so many in Washington saw his policies as a dangerous flirtation with neutrality, if not flippant anti-Americanism.
What guidance, then, can Marshall Green offer in today’s flammable world of north-east Asian affairs? Former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski noted recently that the media’s depiction of Obama’s rebalancing of American foreign policy towards Asia as a “pivot” (with the salient reminder that the President himself has never used the word) misses the point that it was “only meant to be a constructive reaffirmation of the unchanged reality that the US is both a Pacific and Atlantic power.” That might be so, but few would quibble that the challenges facing policymakers in Washington and Canberra arising from the rise of China present challenges of a different order to those the US has faced in the past. And the White House still faces an equally formidable set of regional flashpoints — not least with North Korean sabre rattling, persistent Sino-Japanese antagonism, and lingering India–Pakistan tensions. Moreover, the psychological and political effects of modernisation, and their resulting consequences for nationalism, are still very much at play across Asia.
Green saw both sides of this problem: that just as much as this new spirit of national self-confidence could be a force for cohesion, the divisive nationalism of Asian leaders like Mao, Rhee, and Sukarno could also be employed to brutally consolidate power at home while making enemies abroad.
At a critical time in American foreign relations, Marshall Green recognised that the best role the US could play in Asia was not that of roving policeman, but stabiliser. It is a role many regional allies look to Washington to play today, despite the message now, as then, that America needs first and foremost to tend to pressing domestic challenges. Of course, no one bureaucratic career, speech, or presidential doctrine from the past can point a sure way ahead: history has a habit of springing surprises. But the path can surely be illuminated by a surer grasp of the history of America’s regional embrace in the post-war era and those who crafted its course.
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