Hasta La Gadget!

Note: Our accounts contain the personal recollections and opinions of the individual interviewed. The views expressed should not be considered official statements of the U.S. government or the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. ADST conducts oral history interviews with retired U.S. diplomats, and uses their accounts to form narratives around specific events or concepts, in order to further the study of American diplomatic history and provide the historical perspective of those directly involved.

After the 1949 defeat of the Chinese Nationalists at the hands of Mao Zedong’s People’s Liberation Army, the newly-proclaimed People’s Republic of China (PRC) established friendly relations with the Soviet Union. The fact that the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union shared a Marxist-Leninist ideology kept the two countries closely-aligned soon after the PRC was founded. But as China gained more power vis-à-vis its neighbors, trouble was just over the horizon.

The beginning of the 1960s heralded a new phase in Sino-Soviet relations. Ideology was at the crux of the issue, with China and the Soviet Union both vying for the title of leader of the communist world. China’s economic reforms, which paved the way for a détente with the United States as well as greater participation in the global economy, were anathema to the Soviets during the Cold War.To make matters worse, territorial disputes, the most severe of which occurred over the island of Domansky (Zhenbao in Chinese) in the Ussuri River on China’s border with the Soviet Union, nearly plunged the two countries into all-out war.

Helmut Sonnenfeldt, John J. Taylor, and Richard Solomon were American diplomats who witnessed firsthand the growing rift between China and the Soviet Union. All offer unique insights into why the two countries drifted apart and how the growing divide influenced the national security strategy of the United States.

This account was compiled from interviews by ADST withHelmut Sonnenfeldt (interviewed in 2000), a member of the Office of the Director for Soviet Foreign Policy at the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) from 1961 to 1969, John J. Taylor (2000), a Political Officer in Hong Kong from 1970 to 1974, and Richard H. Solomon (1996), a staff member of the National Security Council, Asian Affairs, from 1971-1976. You can read the entire account on ADST.org.

SONNENFELDT: China had become Communist in 1949. At that particular time, they were friendly with the Soviets, although we soon learned that even then there were some underlying frictions; but they still were pretty close.

It was the general assumption (now borne out by the Soviet archives and various other materials) that the Korean War was started by the North Korean leader, Kim Il Sung, with Soviet support, maybe even as a Soviet stooge. In fact, it was more complicated than that; there was also Mao Zedong’s support.

After the Chinese came into the Korean War in 1950, and Soviet MiG fighters and MiG pilots were involved almost from the start, it all looked like a coordinated Sino-Soviet war with the U.S. But the long, bloody deadlock eventually led to an armistice after Stalin’s death in 1953. Korea remained split along the 38th parallel.

We saw differences between the Soviets and the Chinese, including on the question of nuclear war. A colleague of ours, Donald Zagoria, was at CIA doing the same sort of thing that we were doing.
He produced a thick volume, classified at the time, in 1956 or ’57, showing the symptoms of major conflict and disputes between the Soviets and the Chinese. It was later published (under the title “The Sino-Soviet Conflict 1956-1961.”) The CIA took out some classified material, but then released it, and it was a sensation at the time.

I was conservative; I accepted the notion that Marxist-Leninists had disputes, and even killed each other over them. But in the end, they believe in the same thing; so we ought to be very careful before we assume that there was a real conflict between the Soviet Union and China. A lot of other Sovietologists of what you might call the “hard line” school thought this conflict was unlikely, or may even be a trick to lull us into some false sense of security.

I think that the Kennedy administration came in very much concerned with our relations with the Soviets and very much concerned about our not doing as well as we should. The idea of getting America moving again was central to Kennedy’s programs – at least they thought it was a good political tack to take – but their perception was that we were in serious difficulty with the Soviets. The Berlin crisis had been going on, and we had earlier in 1960 the U-2 episode. So relations were in pretty bad shape.

Also, somebody showed John Kennedy a long speech that Khrushchev gave, I think, October of 1960, a very famous speech… he talked extensively about wars of national liberation, delivered at a gathering of the international Communist movement, which increasingly had become a forum for Soviet and Chinese dispute.

Kennedy had made his principal Cabinet people – not only those dealing with foreign and security questions – read that speech by Khrushchev because he thought that was going to be the key problem, in addition to the threat of missiles, that we were going to have to face. The speech suggested a Soviet push, and at that time it was still believed to be a Sino-Soviet push, to contest the United States all around the world, including in Southeast Asia. The Administration then produced programs for counter-insurgency training – it wasn’t called counter-terrorism, that’s the term we use now.

Some of us felt that Khrushchev’s speech might actually have as much to do with the emerging contest with China as with a threat and challenge on a global basis to the United States. The Russians and the Chinese were beginning to contest each other for leadership in the international Communist movement, and in the Third World – in Africa and elsewhere. But in Kennedy’s view, Khrushchev’s speech represented a big challenge.

In fact, the first big paper on a Sino-Soviet split, or potential split, or emerging split, was produced at the CIA in the Office of Current Intelligence by a man named Donald Zagoria. It was a long study, examining in the most meticulous fashion every statement, every utterance, every rumor, every inference. He came up with the proposition that this relationship was not going to be stable and was going to be more and more difficult.

Yes, we were keenly interested in the possibility of a split. Of course, by ’61, ’62, some of this became more and more apparent. In fact, after the Cuban missile crisis, Mao was very critical of Khrushchev’s concessions. More and more of this was buried in esoteric publications and utterances, and the rumor mill became more and more obvious and clear.

Now, the policy inferences to be drawn from that weren’t, strictly speaking, our business in INR. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and a lot of others were very skeptical about what was being put out on the Sino-Soviet split; they were interested, but they were skeptical.

They thought maybe it was a deliberate ploy by the Russians and Chinese to mislead us. Therefore, while we had some contacts with the Chinese – rather formal ones because of various issues about missing people – it wasn’t really until Nixon came in that the inferences were drawn from this Sino-Soviet gulf that was widening and deepening every year, that led to the opening to China. But that was ten years later.

In the period we’re talking about, the early 1960s, it was much more a matter for experts, not only in the government, but there were scholars who were tracking the relationship and were publishing things about it. I think on the whole, the policy people in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations were skeptical about making too much of this.

I think in China, as I think in the Soviet Union by the mid-to-late ’60s, there wasn’t much left of communism as a mobilizing idea, but there was still some. In China, there’s very little of it now. I think something like national pride, reminding people of the terrible humiliations that they say they suffered for a long time, is a mobilizing force.

In the case of Russia, in terms of ideology or values that people are eagerly attached to and that have a mobilizing effect, I think by this time, they were getting more and more moribund. I guess they still thought of themselves as a leader of some global movement, and still thought of themselves as being a kind of model for the Third World.

TAYLOR: It was a time of major upheavals in world politics. At the beginning of 1969, Sino-Soviet tensions had almost broken out in actual warfare. Skirmishes had broken out on the Sino-Soviet border with heavy casualties along the Ussuri River. By early 1970, the Soviets were suggesting to us and to some of their Eastern European allies that they might have to use nuclear weapons to take out the Chinese nuclear facilities.

Moscow expected that these comments would get back to the PRC, which they did. Kissinger for one passed them on. Dean Acheson had, many years earlier, predicted that someday the Soviet and Chinese communists would split. Twenty years later it was happening – and in a dramatic fashion.

The split did not happen overnight; it had been developing over a decade. The first clear evidence came in the ideological rhetoric, which emanated from each camp in 1959. In 1960, Khrushchev tore up Russia’s agreement to assist the PRC, most importantly with help in the development and production of nuclear weapons.

In the mid-1960s, however, the PRC again adopted radical internal policies – the Cultural Revolution and the Communes. Mao felt it was necessary to purge the party of its more moderate elements and the bureaucracy in order to insure that the PRC would not follow in the Soviet revisionist footsteps. Soviet “socialist imperialism” became, in his view, an enemy on par with the U.S. or even worse.

Skeptics abounded on the extent of the riff. For example, as mentioned, many in Taiwan considered the argumentative rhetoric to be a subterfuge to mislead the West. Most China experts in the West, however, saw the seriousness of the dispute. We saw it as a personal and ideological quarrel but also a national rivalry for influence, which reflected some important differences in national interests.

In one effort to “leak” their position, the Soviets even sent a journalist – actually a KBG agent – to Taiwan to talk to Chiang Ching-kuo (politician, son of Chiang kai-shek) about what might happen if they (the Russians) attacked the mainland. The Soviets again expected that this exchange would get back to Beijing, put the PRC on edge, and perhaps encourage some anti-Mao thinking in the Chinese leadership.

By 1969-70, the Soviets believed an opportunity had emerged to make mischief by playing off a disaffected part of the PRC leadership against Mao. In fact, a grievous split had developed in the Chinese leadership that was not readily apparent.

After Nixon’s inauguration, the beginning détente between the PRC and the U.S. gave momentum to this split. By 1971, the Soviets were apparently having secret exchanges with Lin Biao, the PRC defense minister. Speculation was rampant on where the PRC was going internally and externally.

SOLOMON: My second stint in Hong Kong was January through August of 1969. The Cultural Revolution began in China in terms of a leadership dispute in the fall of 1965. That’s when we began to see overt political tensions. It actually had its origins in the failure of the Great Leap Forward, and Mao’s loss of influence and support from his other colleagues that had come out in the early ’60s.

But we didn’t see it at that point. It hadn’t taken on the form of the Cultural Revolution. The first time I was in Hong Kong (1964-65), the early phase of the Cultural Revolution was just beginning. The second time I was there, in 1969, it was a matter of major purge, massive campaigns, and real violence, only some of which we could see from the outside. But what came to a head in the summer of 1969 was the growing tension between China and the Soviet Union.

In the summer of that year there were major border clashes along the Sino-Soviet frontier that had their precursors in the early part of 1969, and all the propaganda coming out in Hong Kong that summer asserted that the Chinese people should get ready for war with the Russians. The propaganda appeal to “get ready right now” was just one indicator of the sense of intense urgency about the growing tensions between China and the Soviet Union.

The big issue was that Mao was a very confrontational personality. He differed from the traditional Chinese political culture in that he would press confrontations, whereas the traditional Chinese approach was to try to minimize them, to submit to authority, and to avoid confrontation. Mao, however, decided to take on Khrushchev frontally, which he did after Khrushchev’s anti-Stalin speech in ’56. One could see that situation in terms of the evolving Sino-Soviet dispute.

What that meant for China taking us on, in terms of Vietnam, was unclear. And some people said, “Oh, the Chinese are going to take us on. They have all these internal problems, so they’ll try to externalize all this conflict by confronting the United States.” And others said, “No, no, they’ve got tremendous internal difficulties, they’ve got their confrontation with the Russians; they can’t take us on as well.” There was real division of opinion on that issue.

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“Mental disorders — major depression and anxiety in particular — have been described as an impending global epidemic.” — Nutritional psychiatry research: an emerging discipline and its intersection with global urbanization, environmental challenges, and the evolutionary mismatch.

Research from the emerging field of nutritional psychiatry indicates that mental disorders will continue to rise globally in the future.

As a mother, I am most concerned for my children, afraid that I won’t recognize the signs of a problem and wonder if I am doing everything I can to foster their emotional strength. As a nutritionist, I am heartened by the strides science has made in understanding the role nutrition plays in mental health.

The article reviews the shift in dietary patterns due to urbanicity (conditions that are particular to urban vs. non-urban areas), climate change, and the globalization of the food industry. It emphasized the urgency for bringing attention to the multi-nutrient factors that can influence mental health. Although the relevance of diet to psychiatry has long been understood because the brain relies on nutrients (amino acids, carbohydrates, essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals) to operate, it often takes a backseat to other forms of treatment.

According to an article in the U.K. Medical Journal The Lancet in January 2015, “Nutritional Medicine as Mainstream in Psychiatry”:

Although, the determinants of mental health are complex, the emerging and compelling evidence for nutrition as a crucial factor in the high prevalence and incidence of mental disorders, suggests that diet is as important to psychiatry as it is to cardiology, endocrinology and gastroenterology.

The article by members of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research provides the growing evidence of addressing nutrient deficiencies to preserve mental health. The report cites epidemiological studies, including prospective studies that have shown associations between healthy dietary patterns and a reduced, prevalence, and risk for depression and suicide.

Global initiatives should ensure that high quality nutrient-dense foods and a balance of macronutrient and micronutrients to support physical and mental health should be accessible to all members of the general population, regardless of socioeconomic background.

As a nutritionist trained in biochemistry-specific nutrition, I understand that our bodies uniquely respond to different nutrients. Emerging research indicates that we must not only look at the nutrients taken in through diet and supplementation but discern how the body is able to metabolize and utilize those nutrients. Based upon ongoing research, here are some of the components that can help us to understand how nutrition impacts brain function.

1. Address deficiencies
Individuals with depression often have low levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, noradrenaline and gamma-aminobutyric acid. Nutrients are the raw material required to formulate neurotransmitters in the brain. Nutritional deficiencies associated with depression include omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, magnesium, B vitamins and minerals (zinc, selenium, iodine, iron, calcium) and amino acids that act as precursors to neurotransmitters.

Blood work should be taken to determine individual deficiencies and develop a nutrition and supplement plan to enhance formulation of neurotransmitters.

1. Check for heavy metal overload
Heavy metal overload can interfere with normal physiological functions.
High levels in the brain can disturb your brain chemistry and cause anxiety and depression. Copper overload is indicated in brain disorders.

Hair, blood and urine analysis can be done to detect heavy metal toxicity.

2. Address gut health
Production of neurotransmitters and absorption of nutrients is also dependent on gut health and the state of the intestinal microbiome. Gut health needs to be addressed.

3. Test for genetic variants–
Genetic variants are alterations in the normal sequence of the gene. Understanding the genetic variants that exist can help to understand what is going in the body. Genetic variants can affect how we respond to nutrients. Modifications to diet, environment and lifestyle can impact gene expression. It is also important to understand just because we possess a genetic variant does not necessarily mean we are being affected by it.

Blood tests can provide information on genetic variants.

4. Indicators of methylation status —
Methylation is a biochemical process in the body that effects almost every organ, cell and tissue in the body. Methyl groups are formed to perform critical reactions in the body. Critical functions along the methylation pathway include switching on and off genes, detoxification, synthesis of neurotransmitters, fighting infections and eliminating toxins from the body. Stress, poor diet, genetic mutations and environmental factors can all disrupt the methylation process. Disruptions in methylation effect how we utilize nutrients. The inability to properly metabolize B12 and folate is a common methylation disruption which can have a direct impact on mood disorders.

Blood tests can be used to identify methylation status. When identified, nutrients can be part of the protocol to support methylation processes.

5. Reduce high oxidative stress —
Oxidative stress has also been implicated in mental disorders. Antioxidants are our best defense system against free radical damage in the body (zinc, vitamin E, vitamin C , precursors to production of glutathione).

Blood tests can determine deficiencies.

Nutrition is becoming recognized as a key element in treating and preventing mental health disorders. Given the increasing evidence that nutrition has a fundamental role in promoting mental health, it should be a standard inclusion to any psychiatric practice. The marriage of the two disciplines is a critical component of the effort to bring awareness and enhance treatment of mental health disorders. I am confident that expanding research in this area will help us gain control over this rising epidemic.

As far as my concerns for our children: It takes a village. Our schools, parents, and health professionals all need to join hands and tackle this challenge together. Hope for our children and their future is dependent on it.

If as a parent you suspects your child is suffering from depression, please take immediate action and seek professional treatment from a qualified mental health professional.

My Other Posts: Yoga Off the Mat, Binge Eating: Self Sabotage or Self-Defense

___________________

If you — or someone you know — need help, please call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. If you are outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of international resources.

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Luca Alinovi, Executive Director, Global Resilience Partnership
Johan Rockström, Executive Director, Stockholm Resilience Centre

The first United Nations World Humanitarian Summit takes place among the mosques and minarets of Istanbul today. While long overdue, it will fail to address recurring humanitarian crises. The truth is that the monolithic institutions charged with dealing with these crises – and the thinking that governs these institutions – are rapidly becoming obsolete as we enter a new, less predictable era.

Worldwide 125 million people need humanitarian aid. The causes are well known: conflicts and natural disasters. In 2014, violence and conflict displaced 15 million people – approximately the population of the Netherlands. While natural disasters, of which 90% are weather related, forced 19 million people to abandon their homes – just less than the population of Australia.

In 2015, OECD nations spend $13.6 billion on humanitarian aid, a rise of 11% on 2014, and $131 billion on overseas development, a rise of 6.9%. Over the last 30 years, one-third of development spending – $3.8 trillion (USD) – went on recurrent crises. With war raging in Syria and ten million people in southern Africa requiring food aid this year, there is a clear tension between short-term humanitarian priorities, long-term development goals and limited financial resources. This tension led to Médecins Sans Frontières abruptly and understandably withdrawing from the summit. The summit must go beyond Red Queen solutions where “We must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place”, as Lewis Carroll wrote, not least because the ground beneath our feet is feeling increasingly unstable as a result of human impact on the planet. Very soon, even Red Queen solutions will no longer suffice.

Why? Earth has entered the Anthropocene – the age of humans. Our impact has now pushed the planet beyond its usual operating state that has provided a remarkable climatic stability for 11,700 years. Increasingly, shocks reverberate globally thanks to interconnectivity from communications, trade, financial systems and politics – the Arab Spring and global financial crisis are two prominent examples. The people hit hardest, ironically, are those who have done the least to cause them – the poorest.

The 21st century will be defined by three drivers: increasing complexity where societies and ecosystems become even more intertwined; global interconnectivity, from local to global scales; and, surprise.

This means stability and assumptions of linear, incremental change are history. Shock and stress – from droughts, to pandemics and violence – are here to stay. Efficiency and optimisation is not enough, we must invest in diversity and flexibility. And, we must recognise that reactive humanitarian aid is insufficient, we now need an international strategy for proactive action to enable communities to avoid disaster and transform positively through crises.

In short, we must build resilience.

Resilience is often used rather narrowly to refer to how something – a person, community, city or ecosystem – returns to its original state after being pushed by an external shock – a virus, flood, civil war or fire, for example. This has led to a myopic focus on disaster preparedness as the catch-all resilient solution. The solution often involves separating human societies from nature to focus on social and technological strategies to resist change. This assumption worked relatively well in the past but in the Anthropocene it is wrongheaded.

Resilience cannot just stop at ‘bouncing back’. It must build capacity to avoid abrupt, irreversible change, adapt to change, and transform in situations of crisis – both society and the ecosystem society lives within. We need social and ecological resilience. We need to actively see unpredictability and surprise as an opportunity – not just a challenge.

The Global Resilience Partnership (convened by the Rockefeller Foundation, USAID and Sida) is investing $150 million (USD), and leveraging billions more, to apply radical resilience thinking across four of the most vulnerable regions on Earth: the Horn of Africa, the Sahel and south and southeast Asia. The Stockholm Resilience Centre is providing an intellectual anchor point to ensure this investment delivers long-term resilience to chronic stresses and contributes to the transformation and development of these societies and the ecosystems upon which they depend.

This unique partnership is on a mission to redefine resilience for humanitarian and development aid – as strategies for persistency, adaptation, and transformation – and provide essential solutions.

The World Humanitarian Summit is the opportunity of a lifetime to go beyond Red Queen solutions. To succeed, it must lead to urgent action moving from disaster management to resilience building of interconnected human and ecological systems, from local to planetary scale. The summit must not degenerate into a well-meaning talking shop where nations risk parodying Lewis Carroll: “I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.”

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We just finished Commencement at Wesleyan University. We awarded around 800 diplomas, and we recognized the achievements of Kwame Anthony Appiah, Patti Smith and Bryan Stevenson with honorary doctorates. Each spoke eloquently, and Bryan encouraged our graduates to dare to change the world by getting closer to those most in need, to change the narrative of achievement and oppression, and to be willing to do uncomfortable things while preserving hope. The graduating seniors rose in a standing ovation.

Graduation ceremonies are inspiring, and yesterday’s was particularly so. As the seniors departed, I was hopeful that all our graduates, whatever their majors and plans for the future, learned three broad things while they were in college: learned what they love to do; learned how to get better at it; learned how to share what they love to do with others. With that broad education under their belts, I look forward to seeing how they will engage with the world in the years to come.

That’s what I tell our students when they are starting college. Here’s an excerpt I recently gave to pre-frosh making their minds up about which college or university to attend:

Cross-posted with Washington Post.

Michael S. Roth is president of Wesleyan University. His most recent books are “Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters” and “Memory, Trauma, and History: Essays on Living With the Past.”

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CNN political analyst and former presidential adviser David Gergen called for the repeal of North Carolina’s anti-trans law, known as HB 2, while giving a commencement speech at Elon University.

“Enough is enough,” Gergen said in his address on Saturday, which can be viewed above. “For those of us who have stayed on the sidelines, it is time to stand up and be counted. It is time to raise our voices against this darkness.”

Gergen, who served as an adviser under four U.S. presidents, is a native of North Carolina. He said many North Carolinians were proud to talk about their home state “until just a few years ago.”

“Then suddenly, without warning, dark clouds arrived,” Gergen said. “The moderation that characterized our state — the belief among Republicans and Democrats that we are all in this together — gave way to a new, angrier, extremist politics.”

Gergen urged graduates to take action against the law.

“May I plead with you: Please don’t stay on the sidelines as America struggles to find the best path forward,” he said. “Come off the bench and get into the arena.”

HB 2 established a statewide anti-discrimination policy, banning employers and businesses from discriminating against employees or customers based on their race, color, country of origin, religion, age or “biological sex.” But it offers no protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and prevents local governments from passing any nondiscrimination policy that goes beyond the statewide standard.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) is facing major backlash for signing HB 2 into law, and the state has lost millions of dollars in business. Many events have been canceled as a result of the legislation — including performances by Bruce Sprinsteen, Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas and Pearl Jam — putting a strain on North Carolina’s tourism industry.

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