Hail to the Chief, and Never Mind the Truth

By following mistaken policies toward Third World countries, the United States itself ends up by acting as a Third World country.

Many sociologists have long used Max Webber’s concept of patrimonialism to explain why things work (or rather, do not work) in, say, Gen. Alfredo Stroessner’s Paraguay, in the Ethiopia of Haile Selassie, as described by Ryszard Kapuscinski in “The Emperor” or in Pakistan as fictionalized by Salman Rushdie in “Shame.”

Patrimonialist power, explains Webber, consists of a chief surrounded by unquestioning servants who do not feel responsible toward the law but prefer to define the law as personal fidelity toward the chief, whose orders are considered legitimate, no matter how arbitrary they might actually be. This archaic form of power isolates the chief, who depends more and more on his clan and, finally, must act through a private army to impose his whims.

Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, willing to stand on his head for his chief, and Adm. John Poindexter, capable of devining his chief’s most secret desires and thus feeling authorized to act for him beyond the law, give a particular, modern twist to Webber’s idea. In Washington, the obsession of a small group of men has led, in effect, to the creation of a patrimonialist private army dedicated to the narrow purpose of overthrowing the existing regime in Nicaragua, because the former protectorate no longer follows orders.

Never mind that the private army--the contras --have proved again and again their military incapacity. Never mind that their only victories are against human rights. Never mind that they lack any kind of significant public support inside Nicaragua. Never mind that without U.S. backing the contra leaders would be selling soda pop in Miami.

Never mind more: that the Reagan policy in Central America is opposed by the Latin American majority (Contadora and its support members include 90% of the land, the resources and the population of Latin America); that the Latin American majority offers perfectly viable peace plans for the region, culminating in a neutral and demilitarized Central America; that Latin America probably has the world’s oldest trained diplomatic capacity for negotiating conflicts.

But for Washington’s ham-handed interference, we would have already found a Latin American solution to a Latin American problem. The Reagan Administration’s disdain for Latin diplomacy profoundly irritates our governments and distances them from Washington, whose arrogance toward the Latin American majority undermines good relationships with 410 million people in the name of crushing 3 million Nicaraguans out of sheer spite.

An invasion of Nicaragua would engulf all of Central America in war and destabilize all of the governments in Latin America, already heavily burdened by death, inflation, unemployment and economic regression. The policies defended by Lt. Col. North would yield greater destruction than the Soviet Union is capable of wreaking in the Western Hemisphere.

Never mind: The boys in Washington will have their day. Why don’t they simply form the Ronald Reagan Brigade and take their splendid little war down to Nicaragua? This would give them a chance to prove their fighting mettle other than in congressional committees and on talk shows.

The disgruntled soldier who believes that civilian government and democratic institutions betrayed him and his comrades is not a new figure in 20th-Century history. The unhappy man of the Sreikorps in Germany and the Fascidi Combattimento in Italy following World War I opened the way for Hitler and Mussolini. If unchecked, the Col. Norths lead to this. They are applauded and egged on by the very constituency they address so demagogically. If this happened in the land of Kant and Beethoven, why can’t it happen again, in the land of Jefferson and Gershwin?

Well, perhaps for the good reason that the United States is not Germany or Italy--not even the France whipped to a frenzy by Gens. Jacques Massu and Raoul Salan during the Algerian crisis; and certainly not the Argentina manipulated by Juan and Eva Peron from a balcony. Oliver North and Fawn Hall do not seem to fit these roles, unless--or until--played by Clint Eastwood and Morgan Fairchild.

Absorbed by show business or defused by democracy? There is a very serious consideration in the midst of all this sloppiness and buffoonery where the more lies you tell, the more heroic you seem. North would be reprimanded by Dr. Johnson: Patriotism, sir, is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

The serious question, I think, is this one: Democracy or empire? Leonard Barnes asked it of Great Britain in 1939, in his study of the colonial question. The same query may be addressed to the United States today. The United States has cast itself in the role of democracy inside and out. The Soviet Union acts as an empire within and without.

The danger of this situation is that, inflamed by demagogues such as North, the United States may decide, like the Soviet Union, to unify its imperial policies outside and inside. This would mean the end of democracy in the United States--or, more likely, an internal conflict of revolutionary dimensions to decide the issue. It would also mean that there would cease to be a difference between the United States and the Soviet Union. Given two evils, most nations would choose to support, not the lesser, but the more distant one.

The United States has been the Jekyll and Hyde of Latin America. We admire the democracy; we deplore the expansionist and manipulative empire. What I would like to see is a unity, not an imperial arrogance, but a democratic policy, inside and outside the U.S.A. I believe that the United States would then quickly outstrip the Soviet Union in support around the world, gaining more friends than Lt. Col. North ever bargained for.

But acting as a democracy abroad means not confusing statesmanship with the imposition of U.S.-style democracy internationally: Other nations are culturally and politically beyond the grasp of either the United States or the Soviet Union. The democratic rule should be: normal relations, constructive and cooperative, with all, independent of anyone’s internal politics and ideologies. This is a demand that many hyperactive, self-congratulating and provincial Americans cannot countenance, because it means accepting reality: From now on, the two superpowers are going to play diminished roles in a greatly diversified and interdependent, multipolar world.

The United States now needs a true statesman to guide the nation toward the 21st Century and its real problems. These include adjusting to a world where responsibilities will be far better distributed than in the period of Yalta, which is now ending, in spite of anachronistic figures such as Lt. Col. North. The Soviet Union seems to have found just such a man. Will the United States be equally lucky?