Charles Wheeler Thayer (1910–1969)

As a book on guerrilla warfare, there are definitely better texts. Thayer combines Clauswitz, Mao, and his own experiences as a liaison officer in WW2 to arrive at a hesitant mix of platitudes about the need to offer something to civilian populations, judge the political 'temperature of the waters', and relentlessly pursue guerrilla forces. He's not wrong, but the topic has been treated in more depth by others. Like so many others, Thayer is unable to square the circle of what causes modern show more liberal technocratic citizens are be willing to die for, and the institutional position of unconventional warfare vis-a-vis balances of power in the US government.

That said, as a historical artifact his book is fascinating. It was written in 1963, at the fulcrum of the Vietnam War, and for all the criticism above, Thayer is definitely asking the right questions about what America should be doing in the region. So what was this career officer, diplomat, and expert in unconventional warfare doing at this crucial period in history? Hiding out in Majorca to avoid a Senate investigation into allegations of homosexual behavior and Communist leanings.

Oh, that's why we totally screwed up in Vietnam. show less

Thayer was a long-time member of the U.S. diplomatic service who also served in the OSS. His most memorable posts were in Kabul during WWII and, for many years, in the Soviet Union.

Diplomat, published in 1959, is a non-fiction work, describing the in's and out's of life in the diplomatic corps, with a history of international diplomacy worked in throughout, as well as a history of American diplomatic efforts, the attitudes of Congress towards the U.S. foreign service, an the evolution of the show more infighting between the different civilian service branches and how they affected American diplomacy. A lot of this book is interesting, though the details about things like protocol and rankings became tedious. I believe that was intentional, a way of demonstrating the frequent tedium and absurdity of the life of the diplomat. Thayer's attitude is that it's the ambassador on the ground who can gather the most useful information and get the most diplomacy done, and that high ranking government officials swooping in to conduct negotiations may end up doing more harm than good. At any rate, as I mentioned, this book is usually interesting, though not always fascinating.

Thayer does offer plenty of personal anecdotes, observations and opinions, which make the reading more lively. One recurrent theme is that lawyers and businessmen, contrary to popular belief, do not make good diplomats, because they are used to living in a world where contracts are enforceable. What you need, says Thayer, perhaps not surprisingly, are trained, professional diplomats:

Diplomacy mediates not between right and wrong but between conflicting interests. It seeks to compromise not between legal equities but between national aspirations. Among nations, despite the efforts of statesmen since Grotius, no ordered system with a unified process of law enforcement exists. Furthermore, a nation's interests, aspirations, and the power to satisfy them vary from year to year, indeed from day to day. What yesterday was satisfactory may tomorrow be intolerable and unenforceable.

Thayer gives as an example the treaty arranged with Germany after World War II when the U.S. wanted to return national sovereignty to Germany. A treaty was negotiated by a team extremely lawyer-heavy on the U.S. side in which "The abolition of cartels, the guarantees of democratic government, the punishment of war criminals, and a thousand other details were negotiated by a host of lawyer and legal experts as though a system of law existed into which the agreements might fit. . . . (but) by granting West Germany sovereignty, the treaty fundamentally altered the power relationship of the signatories. The limitations that it sought to impose upon the Germans became meaningless because the power to enforce them no longer existed. Those obligations the German government assumed which corresponded with her national interests remained in force. The rest, in a matter of a few years, vanished all but unnoticed." The point being, of course, that experienced professional diplomats would have seen this coming and worked the treaty otherwise to make it more binding.

What is fascinating is Thayer's own story. A quick look at Wikipedia reveals that by the time this book was written, Thayer was six years past being hounded out of the foreign service by McCarthy and Hoover for supposed Communist sympathies and, horror of horrors, homosexuality. Here's the link to the bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_W._Thayer. Thayer's papers are in the Truman Library: http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/thayerc.htm

I love to read relatively obscure books written in another era and describing an aspect of that era from within. This books fits that well, despite its frequent dry patches, which lower my overall rating to 3 1/2 stars. show less

Mr. Thayer, having had service as a liason officer with the Yugoslavian Guerillas under Tito, has sound advice on how to run the guerilla phase of a war. His book begins with a description of American failures in the early Vietnam War, and the Bay of Pigs fiasco. There is a useful survey of more successful operations in European, Asian, and South American conflicts. It is a book worth reading, though some American pundits don't like it.

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