ABSTRACT
Much has been said about the struggle and failure of key experts in the late 1950s and 60s to convince their colleagues and policymakers of the growing rift between the Soviet Union and China. In retrospect, commentators have concluded that the analysts simply lacked a sufficient amount of detailed, fact-based evidence upon which to make the kind of arguments that would have been convincing. However, when we look at even earlier writings from the late 1940s, we find several experts who were able to form a convincing narrative argument, not through any reliance on specialized intelligence sources, but rather by recourse to expertise and imagination.
