Munsey's Magazine, September 1918

This September 1918 issue of Munsey's Magazine features "The Campaign Against Secret Diplomacy" by Frederic Austin Ogg, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin. Ogg examines President Wilson's proposal for "open covenants of peace, openly arrived at," tracing the historical roots of secretive diplomatic practice from Byzantine and Renaissance Italy through nineteenth-century European statecraft. The article discusses how Machiavelli codified principles permitting deception and espionage in diplomacy; recounts anecdotes involving Henry VIII, Louis XIV, Talleyrand, and Metternich; analyzes the Congress of Vienna as exemplifying secret diplomacy at its height, including the secret 1815 alliance against Prussia and Russia that Napoleon discovered; and examines figures like Cavour, Bismarck, and Gortchakoff as practitioners of covert international dealings. The text argues that European diplomacy developed traditions of intrigue fundamentally at odds with democratic principles, and examines whether Wilson's vision of transparency can succeed.