Walter Lippmann and the American Century — 13 “This Is Not Peace

1. 1. Lippmann argued that the peace outlined by the Fourteen Points was no longer possible due to the Bolshevik revolution, destruction of German power, and disintegration of Austria-Hungary.
2. 2. The Treaty of Versailles stripped Germany of colonies, forced it to admit war guilt, imposed a huge indemnity, disarmed it, and placed it under Allied economic control.
3. 3. The New Republic editors unanimously decided to oppose the Treaty of Versailles, believing the League of Nations was not powerful enough to redeem it.
4. 4. Lippmann charged that Wilson's greatest mistake was failing to see he did not have to compromise his principles to win Allied support for the league; he should have insisted on the Fourteen Points as a condition.
5. 5. Lippmann considered Article Ten of the League Covenant, which obliged members to uphold each other's territorial integrity, the hardest part to swallow, as it locked in an unjust settlement.
6. 6. Lippmann provided Senate opponents of the treaty with information from the Inquiry and Colonel House's staff, particularly the connection between secret treaties and the Fourteen Points.
7. 7. Lippmann opposed Wilson's decision to intervene against the Bolsheviks by sending American troops to Soviet Arctic ports and joining the Japanese invasion of Siberia.
8. 8. Lippmann helped serialize John Maynard Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace in the New Republic, which savaged the treaty and Wilson's naivete.
9. 9. Lippmann blamed the failure at Paris on a failure of technique: Wilson had no diplomatic service capable of diagnosing Europe and worked through House's irresponsible staff.
10. 10. Lippmann later regretted his opposition to the treaty, saying the decision was basically Croly's and that he would take the other side if he had it to do over again.
11. 11. Lippmann supported Herbert Hoover for the 1920 Republican nomination as a moderate progressive, but Hoover was too cautious to challenge the Old Guard.
12. 12. Lippmann saw the 1920 election as a dismal choice between two provincial, ignorant politicians, with Harding's victory reflecting a desire to be rid of Wilson and the war.