Ryan, Henry Butterfield 1931-

PERSONAL:

Born 1931. Ethnicity: "Euro-American." Education: Northwestern University, B.S.; Harvard University, M.P.A.; Trinity College, Cambridge, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—c/o 5325 Manning Pl. NW, Washington, DC 20016-5311. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

U.S. Information Agency, Washington, DC, worked as foreign service officer until retirement. Oxford University, visiting scholar of St. Antony's College; Cambridge University, visiting scholar and life member of Clare Hall; Georgetown University, associate of Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. History Associates, consulting senior historian; Talking History (radio series), occasional commentator.

WRITINGS:

The Vision of Anglo-America: The U.S.-U.K. Alliance and the Emerging Cold War, 1943-1946, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, England), 1987, republished, 2004.

(Coeditor) USIA: New Directions for a New Era, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University (Washington, DC), 1993.

A Brief History of United States Diplomacy, Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training (Arlington, VA), 1996.

The Fall of Che Guevara: A Story of Soldiers, Spies, and Diplomats, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Impure Thoughts (four novellas), Publish America (Baltimore, MD), 2004.

Writer for History News Service. Author of plays produced in the United States, England, and Scotland. Contributor to books, including introduction to The Complete Bolivian Diaries of Che Guevara and Other Captured Documents, Cooper Square Press (New York, NY), 2000, and Che Guevara: A Biography, Cooper Square Press, 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

Henry Butterfield Ryan is a former officer of the U.S. Foreign Service. He writes about diplomacy, Cold War history, and U.S. intelligence operations as a professional, but not necessarily as a participant, in the events about which he writes. The Vision of Anglo-America: The U.S.-U.K. Alliance and the Emerging Cold War, 1943-1946 "give[s] insights into Great Britain's role in the development of post-[World War II] superpower rivalry and her loss of independence as a great power to the United States," described John McDermott in the International History Review. In writing the book, Ryan's intention was not simply to present new information, although the book does so, or to provide a comprehensive overview of his subject. According to Ryan's letter to the editor of the Journal of American History, he set out "to prove certain theories"—specifically, stated Ryan, to show "that the decline of British power in itself helped create the Cold War by destroying any possibility of a triangular relationship among the Big Three that might have prevented it." "To demonstrate his thesis, Ryan attempts to study the role of Polish and Greek problems in the context of British-American affairs," indicated F.M. Carrol in Canadian Journal of History, commenting: "In the section on the Polish crisis, Ryan shows quite clearly that Churchill, Eden, and the British diplomatic staff carried the burden of resisting the Soviet Union on the Polish question during 1944 and 1945…. The Greek crisis gives Ryan a more workable example of the evolution of the Anglo-American alliance."

The "thoroughly researched" work was recommended by J. Braeman, who noted in a Choice review that the book's "major weakness is its narrow focus on the British side." Journal of American History contributor Terry H. Anderson also mentioned the narrow focus of The Vision of Anglo-America: that it is "limited … to British documents" and it doesn't "note more recent studies" than "a couple of important books of the early 1980s." "It seems, therefore, that much of this book was written some time ago," concluded Anderson in his criticism of the "lucid study." However, according to Ryan's editorial letter, "the bibliography lists thirty-nine works published in the 1980s." Furthermore, Ryan indicated that a broader focus was not his intention and was unnecessary because he adequately proves his thesis with the two case studies in The Vision of Anglo-America. Carrol's review similarly noted that Ryan's focus is on an Anglo-American alliance, not a broader English-speaking alliance. Ryan's specific intention is to show that Britain, weakened by the war, attempted to create an Anglo-American alliance in order to maintain its great power status. Thus, the idea of some kind of special relations with the United States became the cornerstone of British policy." "Indeed," observed Carrol, "Ryan proves that the inability of Britain to retain its status as a great power fully equal to the United States and the Soviet Union possibly hastened the onset of the cold war by creating a vacuum in Europe in 1945 that the Americans refused to acknowledge until 1947 and the Russians quickly exploited in 1945 and 1946."

The Vision of Anglo-America, reported Fraser Harbutt in the American Historical Review, is "a valuable corrective" to the "[in]adequate attention" given to "the full implications of Britain's loss of power." "Unfortunately," added Harbutt, "its full significance … is obscured by the author's [unsubstantiated] belief … that British leaders were less concerned about the Soviets than with Britain's general decline." Nevertheless, Harbutt concluded: "Overall, this is an impressive, well-written book that is right on the essentials and is a sharp prompt to further investigation." The Vision of Anglo-America is "based on thorough investigation," noted Robert Frazier, assessing the work in English Historical Review: "Even though the proof of its thesis is unconvincing, the work is a valuable and stimulating study, enhanced by clarity and style." "[Ryan demonstrates] how historians can set exemplary standards for the use of evidence and for the comprehensiveness of case studies," observed Review of International Studies contributor Michael G. Fry. The Vision of Anglo-America "is valuable for [Ryan's] stress on the irony of British policy," wrote Anthony Barnett in the Guardian, continuing: "The UK threw itself upon the United States not out of fear of Russia … but out of fear for an Empire it could not longer sustain single handed."

The Fall of Che Guevara: A Story of Soldiers, Spies, and Diplomats is based on various military and intelligence documents that came into Ryan's possession via the Freedom of Information Act and on interviews with participants from the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the U.S. Department of State, including the U.S. embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, and the military unit known as the Green Berets. His stated intention in producing the book was to evaluate previously unavailable information and blend it into an objective account of a man and a series of events that have generated much subjective analysis over the past thirty years.

Che Guevara was a romantic adventurer who allied himself with Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution of 1959. For a time he served as the head of Cuba's Department of Industries and later as the head of the Central Bank. He represented communist Cuba at diplomatic gatherings around the world. According to some sources, Guevara, a Marxist since 1955, became disenchanted with Soviet-style communism in the early 1960s and eventually left Cuba. He fomented guerrilla-style revolts in Africa and South America, where he hoped to establish socialist enclaves of his own design. In Bolivia in 1967, Guevara was captured and killed, reportedly by a Bolivian soldier. Many people believed that the revolutionary was either killed or ordered killed by the Central Intelligence Agency or another agency of the U.S. government.

In The Fall of Che Guevara, Ryan argues that Guevara was always an ally of Castro, even unto death, and that his paramilitary forays in the Congo and Bolivia were ordered and supported by Castro. He shows that U.S. agencies were deeply involved in the defeat of Guevara but not in his execution. Nor was his execution ordered, Ryan says, by any U.S. official. Despite the title, this book is less about the fall of Che Guevara and more about the role (or absence) of the United States in the events that precipitated Guevara's death. Washington Monthly reviewer Joseph A. Page described the account as "a case study of perhaps the most successful counter-insurgency effort ever launched by the U.S. government." Ryan documents the role of the United States in bringing a Green Beret team to Bolivia, supporting local military and law enforcement units by providing them with equipment and training, and contributing economic aid and other assistance. He insists that the United States minimized its physical presence in the guerrilla area in Bolivia, supplied material only to the extent and level of sophistication that were absolutely essential for the mission's success, and strictly limited the objectives of the operation to avoid the type of escalation that was occurring at the time in Vietnam.

Page praised The Fall of Che Guevara as "a thoughtful critique of both the operational and intelligence-gathering aspects of the U.S. intervention," an objective account that acknowledges the weaknesses of the U.S. effort along with its strengths. Kenneth Maxwell of Foreign Affairs recommended "this well-written and exhaustively researched book," and Philip Swanson of the Times Literary Supplement said it "combines sound traditional scholarship with readability and a sense of identification and drama." Nation critic Patrick Markee noted "the tunnel vision of the cold war-era national security bureaucrat" and "the detached, paranoid style common to such texts," but even he conceded that "Ryan does present corroborating evidence that the United States did not order Che's execution."

Ryan told CA: "I am a compulsive writer. I get nervous and fretful when I am not writing. Still, after I retired from the Foreign Service I discovered the stinging isolation of a writing lifestyle and realized that I had to take steps to manage solitude. Fortunately, in Washington, DC, that is easily done once you figure out a few things, which I must admit took me a ridiculously long time to do. One can be involved very easily in high-level and interesting programs—usually just by asking or signing your name. These include, for example, programs at embassies or cultural institutes featuring dignitaries, art shows, or musical events; free or reduced-price theater tickets; activities by alumni associations of the universities I have attended; programs at Georgetown University, where I am an associate of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. In fact, these events can become overwhelming, impinging so much on my writing that, while they resolve my problem with isolation, I find that if I am not careful I begin getting nervous again.

"Undoubtedly, my strength and my favorite genre is non fiction—concerning mainly the history of foreign affairs, but also government operations and current events, nearly always with a historical slant. I also enjoy writing plays, although it is harder to get much attention paid to them than to nonfiction, especially for someone with my background. Still, I have had plays produced on the Edinburgh Fringe, in Cambridge, England, in Washington, DC, plus a one-nighter in London. Even though the playwright ranks just after the company cat, as someone once observed, theater is great fun.

"I have also written a book of fiction consisting of four novellas based on stories I first drafted when I was a very young man. Years later, as a retiree, I polished them as much as I could, titled them Impure Thoughts, and sent them to a publisher who released them in 2004. Finally, I write poetry, but so far only my computer knows anything about my poems."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, December, 1988, Fraser Harbutt, review of The Vision of Anglo-America: The U.S.-U.K. Alliance and the Emerging Cold War, 1943-1946, p. 1335.

Canadian Journal of History, August, 1989, F.M. Carrol, review of The Vision of Anglo-America, pp. 196-208.

Choice, November, 1987, review of The Vision of Anglo-America, p. 493.

English Historical Review, January, 1991, Robert Frazier, review of The Vision of Anglo-America; June, 1999, review of The Fall of Che Guevara: A Story of Soldiers, Spies, and Diplomats.

Foreign Affairs, May-June, 1998, Kenneth Maxwell, review of The Fall of Che Guevara, p. 147.

Foreign Service Journal, December, 1997, review of The Fall of Che Guevara, p. 61.

Guardian, March 27, 1989, review of The Vision of Anglo-America.

International History Review, February, 1990, John McDermott, review of The Vision of Anglo-America.

Journal of American History, June, 1988, Terry H. Anderson, review of The Vision of Anglo-America, p. 312; March, 1989, letter from Ryan, pp. 1418-1419; June, 1999, review of The Fall of Che Guevara, p. 317.

Journal of Military History, July, 1998, review of The Fall of Che Guevara, p. 676.

London Review of Books, August 21, 1997, review of The Fall of Che Guevara.

Miami Herald, March 8, 1998, review of The Fall of Che Guevara.

Nation, January 5, 1998, Patrick Markee, review of The Fall of Che Guevara, p. 25.

Review of International Studies, Volume 14, 1988, Michael G. Fry, review of The Vision of Anglo-America, pp. 137-145.

Reviews in American History, March, 1989, review of The Vision of Anglo-America, pp. 125-130.

Times Literary Supplement, April 2, 1999, Philip Swanson, review of The Fall of Che Guevara.

Washington Monthly, November, 1997, Joseph A. Page, review of The Fall of Che Guevara, p. 55.