d War II, ambassador to the Soviet Union, third director of the CIA, and later undersecretary of state. All these men had experienced the excitement and hopes of World War I. From their experience in the years between the two world wars, they developed three strong convictions that would be the basis for their policies once they came to power. The first was that in 1919 the U.S. had been outsmarted by the British and the French in the postwar settlement and had reacted by withdrawing to its continental boundaries; they were determined that this would not happen again. The second was related to the events of Munich in 1938 when Hitler was let loose by the tired, dispirited, cynical politicians of the old empires, after which the aggressor gained step after step with little opposition. The third conviction was that democracy was a viable governing alternative, and the idea that the people could get together and make deals based on idealism and pragmatism appealed to them on a number of different levels. These were the
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