Links for the Study of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt through Lyndon JohnsonTHE TRIUMPH OF THE
NATIONAL SECURITY STATE
THE COLD WAR AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE
The Truman Doctrine
Excerpts from the 1948 Progressive Party Platform
THE KOREAN WAR, THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, AND THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY
The Constitutional Division of Foreign Policymaking Powers
Truman on the Korean War
EISENHOWER AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE
Secretary of State Dulles on Massive Retaliation
KENNEDY AND THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
HEGEMONIC FLEXIBILITY AND VISIONS OF WORLD ORDER
Eisenhower at the Geneva Summit
Kennedy on World Peace
THE VIETNAM WAR AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY IDEOLOGY
Text of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
Lyndon Johnson on the Vietnam War
CONCLUSIONLinks for the Study of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt through Lyndon Johnson
THE COLD WAR AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE back to top
The United States and the Soviets in the Postwar World
In the early decades of the twentieth century, the primary ideological conflict over foreign policy was between those who wanted the United States to take an activist role in world affairs and those who wanted to isolate the United States from the travails and turmoil of the world across the oceans. The American victories in the world wars sealed the triumph of internationalism. After World War II an increasingly bitter rivalry emerged between the most powerful of the wartime allies, the United States and the Soviet Union. As this struggle intensified, much of the world was split into two hostile camps. The Soviet army had driven the Nazis from eastern Europe, and now this region fell under Soviet control. The United States, Britain, France, and other European countries coalesced into the western bloc.
Thus Europe was divided into two spheres of influence, controlled by the Soviet Union and the United States respectively. But large parts of the world were still up for grabs. Certain countries in central Europe fell in between the boundaries of the two blocs. Germany was split into four different zones of occupation, and eventually divided into East and West Germany. Pro-U.S. and pro-Soviet forces each had influence in Greece, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.
Much of Asia was also being contested. Japan had surrendered to the United States after the dropping of the atomic bombs, and fell under U.S. control. In China the civil war between communist and nationalist forces that had preceded the Japanese occupation raged once again after the Japanese were driven out. In southeast Asia and India the old colonial powers, Britain, France, and the Netherlands, faced nationalist resistance movements, often led by socialists or communists, when they tried to reestablish their rule over their former colonies. Hostile nationalist movements also met Western attempts to maintain control over the Middle East and Africa.
As the world war drew to a close, the United States and Britain sought agreements with the Soviets over the shape of the postwar world. The war-weary Allies had hoped to extend their cooperation to find a basis for a more peaceful world. At conferences at Yalta and Potsdam they appeared to be making progress toward this goal. But it soon became increasingly evident that each side had very different ideas about how power should be distributed and what sort of social order should prevail in the postwar world. The differences between the American and Soviet ideologies and their attitudes toward international politics made mutual understanding difficult and added to the suspicions each had about the motivations of the other.
Stalin, Truman, and Churchill at the Potsdam Conference:
The World War II Allies could not agree on the shape of the postwar worldIn the early postwar years there was uncertainty in the United States about Soviet intentions, about whether the Soviet Union truly wanted an understanding between the great powers or whether they were bent on the classical Marxist-Leninist goal of world conquest. Policymakers debated whether the Soviets would respond more to open, frank negotiations or threats of force. Eventually the view of the Soviets as a hostile expansionist power that could be influenced only by superior military force won out.
The Dawn of the Nuclear Age
In one sense the postwar conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union was a classic great power rivalry. But one thing made it very different from any previous great power rivalry—the existence of the atomic bomb. Now not only was the power of great nations at stake, but the very existence of their peoples and perhaps of the entire human race.
The United States was the first to develop atomic weapons. It also is the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons. In order to speed the unconditional surrender of the Japanese and to test the impact of the new weapon, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. The terror of the nuclear era had begun.
Einstein wrote of the power of nuclear weapons, "They have changed everything, except our way of thinking."
All this destruction was caused by a single atomic bomb, because Hiroshima had not previously been bombed.At the end of the war the United States enjoyed a nuclear monopoly. Many in the Truman administration and Congress wanted to use that monopoly to extract concessions from the Soviet Union. But others, aware that the Soviets would be able to develop their own bomb and fearful of the consequences of a nuclear arms race, counseled that the United States should seek agreements with the Soviets to renounce the manufacture of nuclear arms and for international control of nuclear technology.
The question of nuclear weapons was a critical test of U.S.-Soviet relations in the postwar world. The United States did take some halting steps to try to avoid a nuclear arms race. In 1946 President Truman appointed a commission to develop proposals for international control of atomic technology. But serious efforts to control the development of nuclear weapons ran against the theses of the emerging cold war. Negotiations over international control of nuclear energy broke down on the key issue of whether the existing U.S. program or the developing Soviet program would be controlled first.
There was intense opposition in both the Truman administration and Congress to the idea of sharing nuclear technology with the communist enemy. The hard-liners thought the nuclear monopoly would allow the United States to shape the postwar world in its favor. They did not believe that Soviet science was capable of producing the bomb in the foreseeable future. Many policymakers doubted the Soviets would keep any agreement. Perhaps most important, few policymakers really comprehended how nuclear weapons had changed world power politics.
As the cold war intensified, the Truman administration relied ever more heavily on nuclear weapons as part of its strategy for checking Soviet military power. U.S. military strategy was increasingly based on plans to retaliate against any advances of Soviet ground forces in Europe or Asia with atomic attacks against Soviet military and civilian targets. This became known as the doctrine of deterrence. The United States would deter war by meeting Soviet aggression with an atomic response.
However, the hope that the nuclear monopoly could be used to extract Soviet political concessions quickly proved to be an illusion. The Soviets knew the United States would not risk general war to achieve lesser foreign policy aims, and could simply call the bluff when the United States brandished its atomic weaponry. Once the U.S. monopoly on nuclear weapons ended in 1949 as the Soviets exploded their own weapon, threats to use the bomb to control Soviet behavior rang even more hollow.
The first Soviet atomic bomb test in August, 1949Yet U.S. policymakers continued to see advantages in nuclear weapons. It was believed that even if the actual use of these weapons was too terrible to contemplate, threats to use them could still be used to deter the Soviets from taking action against U.S. vital interests. Nuclear weapons were also cheaper than conventional forces, in both economic and political terms. A few nuclear weapons could substitute for divisions of soldiers who would have to be either drafted or recruited, and who would require heavy costs to maintain.
The Truman Doctrine
The U.S.-Soviet stalemate over the control of nuclear weapons was only one symptom of the deterioration of relations. The United States and the Soviets could not agree on the composition of postwar regimes in Germany, eastern and southern Europe, the Middle East, China, southeast Asia, and elsewhere. As tensions rose, positions hardened and a consensus began to form in the United States that cooperation was no longer possible, that the only way to deal with the Soviets was through confrontation.
The most important statement of the forming American consensus was an address President Truman made to Congress in 1947. The immediate issue was U.S. assistance to pro-Western forces in Greece and Turkey facing communist opposition. But more important, the speech outlined what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine of containment of Soviet expansion. It was one of the first general statements of the emerging national security ideology.
The Truman Doctrine stated the essential principles of the national security ideology that guided U.S. foreign policy from the end of World War II into the 1970s. The United States was portrayed as facing a threat to its very existence. The physical security of Americans was under challenge from enemies abroad and their sympathizers at home. The geographical isolation from foreign powers and conflicts that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans had provided in the nineteenth century was forever gone. The hostile communist world was on the march, and only a newly activist U.S. foreign policy could protect its citizens and its way of life. The United States had to counter communist insurgents, to manipulate faraway events and peoples or face eventual national extinction.
A map of the global expansion of communism since 1917, typical of the Cold War eraThe national security ideology proclaimed the moral superiority of the Western world. Western capitalist democracies were presented as the embodiment of all civic virtues. Soviet socialism was portrayed as brutal totalitarian dictatorship. Conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union were contests between good and evil, darkness and light.
Moreover, the Soviets were pictured as the aggressors. Western military and political action was characterized as purely defensive, simply trying to "contain" Soviet expansionism. The Soviet Union was portrayed as acting aggressively; the United States was seen as merely reacting to Soviet moves. The expansionism of the Soviet Union made conflict inevitable. If the West was to survive Soviet aggression, it must be ready to fight. It must deter war through military strength.
The Truman Doctrine assigned particular importance to U.S. leadership of the West. No other power was deemed capable of meeting the Soviet challenge. Before the war, Greece and Turkey had been British spheres of influence, but Britain was now too weak to maintain control. The situation was similar in other parts of the world, such as French Indochina. The national security ideology asserted that only if the United States led the way, could the expansion of Soviet influence be checked.
The doctrine of containment was global in nature. Every country was critical on the global chessboard. The fall of any nation into the Soviet orbit was likely to be followed by others. In the 1960s this came to be known as the domino theory. If one domino falls, it will set off a reaction overturning a chain of other dominoes. The United States must counter Soviet-backed insurgencies around the world in order to keep such a chain reaction from beginning.
The Truman Doctrine faced stiff political opposition. Weary from the human, economic, and spiritual costs of the world war, Americans had turned away from the Democratic Party they associated with the domestic deprivations of the war. In the midterm elections of 1946 the Republicans regained control of Congress for the first time since the days of Herbert Hoover. Truman's aid package for Greece and Turkey, and the Marshall Plan for even wider ranging economic aid to Europe that followed on its heels, had to pass a Congress controlled by a Republican Party with a large isolationist wing. However, by working with Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan and other prominent internationalist Republicans, the Truman administration was able to win a majority of Republican votes. Aid to Greece and Turkey passed by 67-23 in the Senate and 287-108 in the House. In 1948 the Marshall Plan passed by larger margins.The Truman Doctrine
Totalitarianism or Democracy
Totalitarian regimes imposed upon free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States. . . . Every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.
One way of life is based upon the will of the majority and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression. . . . The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies on terror, oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms. . . . I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures.
Containment
If Greece should fall under the control of an armed minority, the effect upon its neighbor, Turkey, would be immediate and serious. Confusion and disorder might spread throughout the entire Middle East.
Moreover, the disappearance of Greece as an independent state would have profound effect upon those countries in Europe whose peoples are struggling against great difficulties to maintain their freedom and their independence. . . . If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world—and we shall surely endanger the welfare of this nation.
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The Formation of the National Security State
The national security ideology that was triumphant in the postwar era was codified in the National Security Act of 1947, which created a set of political institutions devised to fight the budding cold war with the Soviet Union. The National Security Act restructured the executive departments that made foreign policy and formulated a coordinated military and intelligence apparatus to implement the new role the United States was taking in the world. It was widely believed that the old system of fiercely independent services, competition between the War and State departments for policy leadership, and limited intelligence capacities was inadequate for the struggle against communism.
The National Security Act unified command of the military by putting the formerly autonomous Army, Navy, and Air Force departments under the direct control of the renamed Department of Defense and the newly established military chief of staff. The ability of the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to control the services was assisted by specific grants of authority and by increased staffing. The National Security Act also created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to provide the executive with independent intelligence gathering and evaluating capability. To coordinate the entire apparatus and provide overall direction to foreign policy, the legislation also established the National Security Council (NSC). The NSC's mission was to get advice from each of the players in the foreign policy process, devise long-term policies and strategies that looked beyond the parochial view of any one agency, and coordinate the implementation of policy. The White House website describes the membership of the NSC:
The National Security Council is chaired by the President. Its regular attendees (both statutory and non-statutory) are the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the statutory military advisor to the Council, and the Director of Central Intelligence is the intelligence advisor.
The Bipartisan Consensus on the National Security IdeologyThe platforms of the major parties in the election of 1948 illustrate the elements of an emerging bipartisan consensus on the national security ideology. The Democratic and Republican platforms were the products of highly contentious conventions racked by intense political battles. But the cold war internationalists won the struggle in both major parties. The final statements of the Democratic and Republican conventions sound much as if they were written by the same author. Both were fully internationalist with no hint of residual isolationism.
Republicans and Democrats alike began from the central cold war assumption: that the keystone of U.S. foreign policy should be containment of an aggressive Soviet Union. The two parties supported the extension of U.S. military power globally, favoring extensive aid to anticommunist forces around the world, although both also called for international control of nuclear arms. The newly formed United Nations and the Organization of American States were endorsed by both parties, as was the Rio Pact's mutual defense arrangement for the western hemisphere. The newly emergent state of Israel was also supported. Both parties called for extensive trade agreements with western European nations to integrate the capitalist economies of the West.
The contrast of a third party platform is instructive. The Progressive Party had been an important force in the early part of the century, winning many seats in Congress and even carrying states in presidential elections. In 1948 the Progressive presidential candidate was Henry Wallace, who had been FDR's second vicepresident and would have become president if FDR had died just one year earlier than he did. As a member of the Truman cabinet, Wallace had counseled postwar cooperation with the Soviet Union. His campaign for maintenance of good relations with the Soviets led Truman to fire him in 1946.
Excerpts from the 1948 Progressive Party Platform The American people want peace. But the old parties, obedient to the dictates of monopoly and the military, prepare for war in the name of peace. They refuse to negotiate a settlement of differences with the Soviet Union. They reject the United Nations as an instrument for promoting world peace and reconstruction. They use the Marshall Plan to rebuild Nazi Germany as a war base and to subjugate the economies of other European countries to American Big Business. They finance and arm corrupt, fascist governments in China, Greece, Turkey, and elsewhere, through the Truman Doctrine, wasting billions in American resources and squandering America's heritage as the enemy of despotism. They encircle the globe with military bases which other peoples cannot but view as threats to their freedom and security...They stockpile atomic bombs... They impose a peacetime draft. back to top
Wallace and the Progressives rejected the policies of the cold war and containment. They had a different vision of the kind of world order that could emerge from the ashes of war. The Progressives called for negotiations rather than confrontation with the Soviet Union, criticizing the rise of the national security apparatus and the deployment of U.S. military forces around the world. They sought an end to the military draft.Despite being labeled a communist front by the major news media and the major parties, the Progressives did capture over one million popular votes in 1948. But that represented only 2 percent of the total vote. The bipartisan foreign policy consensus had triumphed and would not again receive a significant political challenge from the left until the late 1960s.
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The Korean War
As the twentieth century reached its midpoint, the attention of U.S. foreign policymakers was centered on Europe. The postwar division of Germany, the composition of regimes in southern and eastern Europe, Western military cooperation, and the Soviet blockade of the Western outpost in West Berlin were at the center of policy deliberations. The year 1949 had brought the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) charter, which bound the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Canada, and most of western Europe into a permanent military alliance. West Germany, which had been created out of the U.S., British, and French postwar occupation zones, was at the core of the new organization, although it was not made a full member until a few years later.
But the ultimate test of the national security ideology did not come in Europe. It came in Korea. The Korean peninsula has the unhappy fate of being placed in a strategic vise, between China and Japan, at the convergence of Soviet and U.S. power in the Pacific. After World War II this former Japanese colony was divided between the West and East blocs along the thirty-eighth parallel.
In June 1950 war between the two Korean regimes broke out, and North Korean forces invaded South Korea. President Truman committed United States forces to the conflict on the side of the South. While the Soviet Union boycotted the proceedings, the U.S. obtained a United Nations Security Council resolution backing South Korea.
U.S. wounded at Yongdong, South KoreaPresident Truman justified his actions to the United Nations, the Congress, and the American people with the doctrines of the national security ideology. In a radio address to the nation in 1951, Truman laid out his reasons for fighting and for conducting the war as he had.
Truman blamed the war on aggression by communist North Korea. To him, the war was an act of a global conspiracy directed and masterminded by the Kremlin. U.S. national security was at stake—if communism were not contained in Korea, it would eventually spread around the world. Truman called for the noncommunist world to unite in an alliance against communist aggression, yet he also warned that the United States should conduct the war in a limited fashion. He feared that escalation would drag the United States into a land war in China, provoke greater direct participation by the Soviet military, and/or cause the Soviets to take action in other areas around the world where the West was more vulnerable, like Berlin.
After initial losses the U.S.-led U.N. forces overwhelmed the North Korean army and had soon occupied much of North Korea. But then the newly established Chinese communist regime entered the war on the side of North Korea, driving the U.N. forces deep into the southern end of the peninsula. There the U.N. forces regrouped and fought their way back into control of most of South Korea until the war stalemated. In 1953 a truce was signed that largely reestablished the prewar situation.Global Communist Aggression
The Communists in the Kremlin are engaged in a monstrous conspiracy to stamp out freedom all over the world. If they were to succeed, the United States would be numbered among their principal victims.
The attack on Korea was part of a greater plan for conquering all of Asia. . . . The whole Communist imperialism is back of the attack on peace in the Far East. It was the Soviet Union that trained and equipped the North Koreans for aggression. The Chinese Communists [threw] 44 well-trained and well-equipped divisions . . . into battle when the North Korean Communists were beaten.
Limited War
The question we have had to face is whether the Communist plan of conquest can be stopped without general war. . . . The best chance of stopping it without general war is to meet the attack in Korea and defeat it there. back to top
The National Security State and the Imperial Presidency
Policy-making in the Korean conflict showed just how much the national security state had changed the balance of power in the institutions that made foreign policy. The national security state required a strong presidency, able to act quickly in international crises.
The national security ideology saw a world defined by the international communist menace backed by Soviet military power. The threat was both global and unpredictable; at any time any part of the noncommunist world might be threatened by communist aggression. The only meaningful deterrent or counter to communist expansion was U.S. military power. In such a world the United States must be able to respond rapidly to repeated emergencies around the globe. And in order to be successful in sustaining such commitments, it must show a national unity of purpose.
Yet the American Constitution divides the power to make war and foreign policy, as it divides most other powers, between the Congress and the presidency. The president is designated commander in chief of the armed forces, but Congress is given the power to declare war. The president is given the power to negotiate with foreign powers, but the Senate must approve treaties by a two-thirds vote. The president has executive power over the military establishment, but no forces can exist without congressional authorization and appropriation of funds.
The Constitutional Division of Foreign Policymaking Powers back to top
President Congress Warmaking Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces Declare War
Authorize Military SpendingForeign Policy Officials appoint ambassadors and
other executive officialsSenate must approve appointment
of ambassadors and other
foreign policy officialsInternational Negotiations Negotiate with Foreign Powers
Recognize Foreign GovernmentsSenate must approve treaties by 2/3 vote
Authorize funds to implement
foreign policyThe framers of the Constitution had several reasons to divide war powers between the Congress and the president. The decision to go to war is the most important decision a country can make. The framers did not believe that decision should lie with just one man.
They knew from their own experience and European history that monarchies with strong executives were prone to go to war. Monarchs often benefited politically from leading winning military campaigns, from being perceived as brave heroes, and from bringing home the spoils of war. Wartime emergencies also gave monarchs an excuse for suppressing domestic dissidents, claiming it was necessary to maintain national unity. The framers of the Constitution were deliberately making it more difficult for the president to commit the country to war. More had to be involved than the benefit of the executive or imperial pride.
The framers also believed foreign policy would be refined through shared powers and the consultation that shared powers required. The executive is limited in its perspective, in its ability to see possible policy options and to anticipate the consequences of its actions. As in other areas of governance, the framers believed that if Congress were involved in policy formulation, serious errors in judgment could be recognized and avoided. Consultation also built a certain degree of delay into the process. This might be a disadvantage in some cases, but it would mean that unreflective action in the heat of conflict would be avoided; that in the midst of a crisis, cooler heads could prevail.
The division of war powers under the Constitution is clearly, as one scholar has phrased it, an "invitation to struggle," and throughout American history Congress and the president have done just that. The circumstances of the cold war and the ideology of the national security state tipped the balance much further in favor of the president than ever before in American history.
The Imperial Presidency and the Korean War
President Truman had to fight to pass aid to Greece and Turkey, the Marshall Plan, and the NATO treaty through Congress. But the national security ideology and the perceived emergency smoothed the way for congressional acquiescence to executive domination of the decision-making process in the Korean War.
President Truman's Cabinet meeting on Korean War:
The executive branch dominated national security policy inthe 1950sThe president's decision to send troops into the Korean conflict was made with only the barest consultation with Congress. So was the decision to try to conquer all of Korea after South Korea had been initially secured. At no point during the war did the Truman administration seek a congressional declaration of war.
The Truman administration argued that under emergency conditions, authority over the use of military forces lay with the president and not Congress. A Department of State Bulletin summarized the key elements of the theory of presidential prerogative:. "The President, as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, has full control over the use thereof." The State Department also asserted that there is a "traditional power of the President to use the armed forces of the United States without consulting Congress," and that this had often been done in "the broad interests of American foreign policy."
Opposition to the development of the imperial presidency in Congress was irregular and ineffective. There was residual isolationist sentiment to keep the United States out of overseas conflicts. There were members who feared that simply acquiescing to unilateral executive decision-making was a bad precedent and a bad way of making policy. But few challenged the principle of containment of communism and few were ready to bear the political costs of opposing the president in a time of perceived national crisis. The most significant challenge to Truman's warmaking authority came not from those who questioned his unilateral commitment of U.S. forces but from those who advocated a wider war, such as the commander of U.S. forces in Korea, General Douglas MacArthur.
President Truman and General Douglas MacArthur conferring early in the Korean War:
Truman later removed MacArthur as commander of American forces
for challenging his authority and openly advocating a wider war
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The Return of the Republicans
The Democratic Party of FDR and Truman had controlled the presidency throughout the tumultuous decade of the 1940s, in which the United States had shed its last isolationist illusions, fought in the world war, and taken an ever more activist role in shaping the postwar world. Throughout this period Republicans in Congress had largely ratified the broad policy direction of Democratic presidents, although they had also often questioned the effectiveness of Democratic administrations.
In 1952 the Republicans recaptured the White House for the first time in 20 years by heading their ticket with the popular hero of D-Day, Dwight Eisenhower. In 1952 they also won control of Congress, but the Democrats regained Congress in 1954 and held it throughout the rest of Eisenhower's term. Now the bipartisan foreign policy consensus faced a new challenge—that of a Republican president working with Democrats in Congress.
The Eisenhower administration also faced a difficult political task within its own party—holding together its liberal, eastern, internationalist wing and its more conservative midwestern and western wing. Twenty years out of power had led to bitter conflict over who was at fault for the party's decline. Yet it had also provided a powerful incentive for Republicans to pull together to make their new president a success.
Eisenhower led the Republicans to a sweeping victory in the 1952 electionsEisenhower had won the Republican nomination as the champion of the liberal, internationalist wing whose candidate had won in every Republican convention since 1940. But the conservative wing was strong in Congress, and Eisenhower needed its support to be successful. In order to understand the pressures Eisenhower faced within his party on issues of foreign policy, one must understand the changing world outlook of the Republican right.
Changes on the Republican Right: From Isolationism to Anticommunist Crusade
The Republican Party had gone through many changes in its period of exile from power, but perhaps the most dramatic was in the isolationist foreign policy positions of its conservative wing. In the period between the end of the second world war and the conclusion of the Korean War, the Republican right had undergone a remarkable conversion from isolationism to anticommunism.
During the world war and the Korean War it had been politically unpopular to question the purpose of fighting. After the world war it was politically difficult to question the policies that had made the United States the predominant power in the world. In the age of globe-spanning transportation and communication networks, it was hard to argue that the two oceans could buffer the United States against world events.
Rising new stars on the Republican right were better attuned to the politics of the day. General Douglas MacArthur was the hero of the victory over the Japanese and the commander of U.S. forces in Korea until he was removed by Truman for openly advocating a wider war. But MacArthur remained a hero to many, and his bold call for all-out war against communism expressed the frustrations many Americans felt with the inability of the United States to decisively defeat communism in Korea.
The wartime emergency also elevated Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin to national prominence. McCarthy built his career on exposing alleged communist subversives and sympathizers who held positions of power in the U.S. government. McCarthy shared with isolationists a visceral distaste for things foreign, things not American.
It was not a long ideological distance from America-first isolationism to anticommunist internationalism. America's European allies were, after all, white, Christian people. But communism as a philosophy was openly atheistic. The communist powers were Russia and China, whose populations could be used to evoke images of Asiatic hordes sweeping across the world stage. In an age when isolationism was no longer politically tenable, holy war against international communism became the doctrine of the Republican right.
Wisconsin Senator Joesph McCarthy's allegations of communists
in the government reflected the fear of the early Cold WarThe Eisenhower administration dealt cautiously with the Republican right. It never openly opposed McCarthy until his wilder charges had turned public opinion against his witch-hunts. It incorporated much of the rhetoric of holy war against communism in its foreign policy statements. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was particularly noted for the messianic zeal with which he opposed world communism. The Eisenhower era was a period of expanding global commitments to contain communism, of an ever broader definition of what containment of the Soviets required. But Eisenhower's policy actions also showed caution in committing U.S. forces to shooting wars like Korea and Indochina.
Concluding the Korean War
The dominant foreign policy issue in the campaign of 1952 had been the stalemate in Korea. Frustration with the Korean situation had played a large part in the rejection of the Democratic Party and the return of the Republicans to power. Many voters hoped that the man who had led the successful D-Day invasion would have the expertise to solve the mess in Korea. On the eve of the election Eisenhower promised to go to Korea, highlighting his attention to this issue without making any commitments about what kind of policy he would pursue.
The new Eisenhower administration had the advantage of not having deep investments in the policies that had led to the stalemate. It could act to end the war without being held politically responsible for the fact that three years of war would end with essentially the restoration of the status quo ante.
Upon taking office, the Eisenhower administration considered escalating the war by attacking military targets in communist China and even using nuclear weapons. But there was little real domestic support for the greater casualties of a wider war, and the nuclear threat rang hollow, given the Soviet capability to retaliate in kind in Japan or elsewhere.
Instead, negotiations to end the war were intensified. In July 1953 a truce was signed that recognized the situation in the field. With slight modifications, the territories of North and South Korea remained largely what they had been before the war. That North Korea had been denied any territorial gain was the only consolation policymakers could claim for the heavy human costs of the war.
The Doctrine of Massive Retaliation
By the time President Eisenhower came into office in 1953, nuclear weapons were deeply embedded in U.S. military planning. The Eisenhower administration codified this military strategy in the doctrine of "massive retaliation." Massive retaliation meant that the United States, when faced with a Soviet threat to its interests, would threaten an all-out nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. It meant that the United States was willing to go to the brink of nuclear war to deter serious Soviet aggression. Eisenhower's Secretary of State John Foster Dulles put it this way:
Local defense will always be important. But there is no local defense which alone will contain the mighty landpower of the Communist world. Local defenses must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power. A potential aggressor must know that he cannot always prescribe battle conditions that suit him. Otherwise a potential aggressor might be tempted to attack...in places where his superiority was decisive. The way to deter aggression is for the free community to be willing and able to respond vigorously at places and with means of its own choosing. back to topThe term "massive retaliation" captured in one phrase the essence of U.S. nuclear planning since Hiroshima. It also provided the justification for accelerated development of nuclear weaponry. On the eve of the 1952 election the United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb, a weapon a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb that had revolutionized warfare.Under the doctrine of massive retaliation the United States developed new ways to deliver nuclear weapons. Added to the bombers that the Truman administration had to rely upon were ballistic missiles, a new method of getting weapons to their targets. Ballistic missiles could be launched from the ground or from submarines. Under Eisenhower the doctrine of a triad of nuclear delivery systems was developed—bombers were to be supplemented by ground and sea launched missiles.
One of the earlier American nuclear weapons submarines The political success of the doctrine of massive retaliation was ironic in light of the failure of nuclear threats to significantly alter the division of Europe or the course of the Korean War. U.S. bluffs to use nuclear weapons over secondary issues had not made the Soviet Union compliant in the period when the United States had a nuclear monopoly. It was not clear why nuclear brinkmanship would be more successful now that the Soviets had their own nuclear arsenal.
The best case for the doctrine of deterrence was that it had prevented general war in Europe. It was widely believed that nuclear threats had deterred the Soviet Union from launching an all-out conventional attack on western Europe. If bluffs to use nuclear weapons over minor conflicts could be called, the Soviets had to take seriously such threats when vital U.S. interests were at stake. But there was little evidence that the Soviet Union either had such a grand design or were ever in a position to carry one out if they did.
The doctrine of massive retaliation was more a reflection of insecurities in the nuclear age. American fears of Soviet military power had intensified after the Soviet Union acquired the atomic and hydrogen bombs. America's self-image of righteous invincibility had been wounded by the stalemate in Korea. Massive retaliation expressed a kind of prenuclear thinking. If the Soviets now had the bomb, Americans needed to have more of them than they did.
Eisenhower, Congress, and the National Security State
Eisenhower, the former general, shared his predecessor Truman's estimation of the communist threat and an expansive notion of presidential war powers. But Eisenhower, a Republican president facing a Democratic Congress, developed a more consultative strategy for the use of military power. This can be seen in the expansion of treaty commitments and the use of prior congressional resolutions to legitimate possible presidential use of military power. On the other hand, Eisenhower also relied on covert operations by the CIA when the inevitable publicity of congressional consultation would be damaging to policy.
Treaty commitments and congressional resolutions had several purposes. First of all, in a crisis situation, they demonstrated national unity and resolve. They allowed the president to act quickly and decisively, using force if he deemed it necessary, knowing that Congress was on record as approving such action under specified circumstances. They also provided political cover for the executive if the intervention went wrong by putting Congress on record as approving the action.
President Truman signs the treaty establishing NATOThe Truman administration had codified the U.S. alliance with Britain, France, and western Europe into the NATO treaty which was ratified by the Senate in 1949. The Eisenhower administration followed this precedent and expanded the range of noncommunist countries under the U.S. military umbrella. In 1954 the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization committed the United States (along with France and Britain) to the aid of South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, Australia, and New Zealand. The Central Treaty Organization followed, covering Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey. Each of these treaties was ratified by a two-thirds vote in the Senate, thus placing Congress as well as the president behind the commitments.
The Eisenhower administration also drew Congress into a secondary, supporting role in decisions during military crises. When trouble flared in a foreign hot spot, the Eisenhower administration came to Congress requesting passage of a resolution that would empower the president to act however he saw fit to meet the crisis.
One example of this was the Suez crisis of 1956. Arab nationalism was running high, and pro-Western regimes in the Middle East were threatened by reaction to the heavy-handed actions of the British, French, and Israelis in seizing the Suez Canal. The resolution gave the president the authority to "employ the armed forces of the United States as he deems necessary to secure and protect the territorial integrity of any such nation or group of nations requesting such aid against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by international communism."
President Eisenhower won a congressional resolution giving him
the authority to use military force in the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956By votes of 355 to 61 in the House and 72 to 19 in the Senate, the resolution passed. In 1958 this authority was used to justify the sending of U.S. marines to bolster the pro-Western, minority Christian government of Lebanon against an Islamic rebellion. The mission was a success, and once again the prestige of the imperial president was bolstered.
Because of his political position Eisenhower had to involve Congress in many foreign policy actions. In other cases, however, he used the CIA and executive secrecy to carry out anticommunist operations. When popular uprisings unseated pro-Western governments in Guatemala in 1954 and Iran in 1955, the national security ideology prescribed counterinsurgency campaigns to restore Western influence. But Eisenhower wanted to avoid the international publicity that congressional consultation would inevitably bring. In these cases he successfully opted for covert action. When communists headed by Fidel Castro led a revolution against the corrupt but pro-Western Batista regime in Cuba, similar tactics were tried with less success. Castro remained in power as Eisenhower turned the reins of American government over to John Kennedy.
KENNEDY AND THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS back to top
Kennedy, Counterinsurgency, and the Bay of Pigs
John Kennedy came to power promising to be a more vigorous cold warrior than his predecessor. Kennedy was concerned that the Eisenhower administration had relied too much on America's overwhelming superiority in nuclear weapons to counter the Soviet threat. In place of the Eisenhower doctrine of massive nuclear retaliation to Soviet aggression, Kennedy proposed that the United States develop greater conventional capability, that it be able to meet Soviet challenges with "flexible responses." One of the key elements in this flexible response strategy was greater counterinsurgency capability. Kennedy had been impressed with the CIA successes in Guatemala and Iran. One of his early initiatives was the formation of an elite military counterinsurgency unit that became known as the Green Berets.
Whereas counterinsurgency had been successful in some cases, Castro still held power in Cuba, heading the first pro-Soviet government in the western hemisphere. The Eisenhower administration had developed a plan to use Cuban exiles and U.S. forces to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro under the pretext of a popular Cuban counterrevolution. But it had not acted, leaving that decision to Kennedy.
President Kennedy with a brigade leader of the Bay of Pigs invasionThe Kennedy administration approved the plan, and in the spring of 1961 the invasion was launched. When the Cuban exiles were quickly surrounded by Castro forces at the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy refused to turn the invasion into a massive U.S. operation. The Bay of Pigs was a colossal failure, neither undermining Castro nor covering up U.S. involvement.
The Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuba was the also the focus of the most important crisis of the Kennedy administration and probably of all the years since the first atomic explosion: the Cuban missile crisis. In 1962 the Soviet Union began installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. At the time the United States held a massive lead in nuclear weaponry. It was able to hit the Soviet Union with hundreds of atomic bombs and was thus assured of destroying the Soviet Union as a society. The Soviets were able to deliver only a few dozen nuclear weapons with assurance. This meant that they could kill tens of millions of Americans and wreak havoc, but they could not be sure of destroying the United States as a society or a military force.
In trying to catch up, the Soviet Union saw short-range missiles in Cuba as a definite advantage. Short-range missiles were cheaper and did not need to be as accurate. Placing missiles in Cuba also had the benefit of making clear the Soviet commitment to the survival of the Castro regime against any future U.S. campaigns like the Bay of Pigs.
U-2 spy plane photos of the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba in October 1962The Soviets probably did not anticipate the virulence of the U.S. response to the Cuban missiles. The United States had placed similar missiles in Turkey and Italy, as part of a general strategy of encircling the Soviets with hostile bases.
But the Kennedy administration, reflecting the power of the national security ideology, did not see the Cuban missiles as the equivalent of U.S. missiles in Turkey. The Soviet Union was viewed as the evil aggressor, whereas U.S. missiles were thought of as merely part of the strategy of containment. Latin America was viewed as a U.S. protectorate, so Soviet power in this region was particularly distasteful. In addition, whatever realism there might have been in the administration about the motives for Soviet action, Kennedy knew the Democratic Party would suffer major electoral losses and most likely be chased from office if the missiles remained.
Specifications of the Jupiter missiles the U.S. had placed in Turkey in 1960Recognizing the importance of devising careful but effective policies in the crisis, Kennedy set up a special committee within the executive branch, later referred to as ex-comm, to formulate the U.S. response. He knew that if policy-making were left to normal bureaucratic and congressional channels, the options developed would be predictable and unimaginative, reflecting the limited perspectives and historical stances of each agency. The missile crisis was too dangerous and unprecedented for policy to be the product of the special interests and old ideas of the bureaucratic apparatus.
Most members of the ex-comm originally favored air strikes to destroy the missiles and/or an invasion of Cuba to remove the missiles and restore a pro-Western regime. Kennedy resisted this advice, hoping to find a policy that would not lead to direct military conflict with Soviet forces. Kennedy was uncompromising on the basic issue of missiles in Cuba, but he hoped to avoid general war. Eventually a plan was worked out to show force and resolve without initiating conflict. The United States would blockade Soviet shipments to Cuba, hoping to keep the missile base from being completed and signaling American determination without immediately striking a military blow.
Kennedy also sought to give the Soviets a way out of the crisis that allowed them to save face, so they would not be perceived as simply backing down. While he was publicly refusing to make concessions under the gun, privately negotiations were vigorously pursued. In return for Soviet agreement to withdraw the missiles, Kennedy publicly pledged that the United States would never again invade or de-stabilize the Castro regime. While publicly denying it, Kennedy also agreed to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey.
The Cuban crisis was the closest the superpowers ever came to direct conflict between their own military forces. While the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in proxy wars around the globe, neither was willing to contemplate the effects of directly attacking the forces of the other. In the Cuban crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union at first appeared willing to risk nuclear annihilation to pursue some small military and political advantage. But in the end both powers showed enough sense to extricate themselves from the crisis.
In the United States the reflexive anticommunism of the national security ideology almost blinded policy-makers to ways out of the confrontation. But even as they exercised military power, key members of the administration were also determined to show the flexibility of a great power and to seek a nonmilitary solution to the crisis. After facing the realities of nuclear holocaust, the Kennedy administration was more determined than ever to seek to lessen tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was no coincidence that the first major arms control treaty between the two powers, the test ban treaty, was signed less than a year after the Cuban missile confrontation.
President Kennedy signing the nuclear test ban treaty, the first arms control agreement with the Soviet Union
HEGEMONIC FLEXIBILITY AND VISIONS OF WORLD ORDER back to top
In the postwar era, the national security ideology based on confrontation with communism was politically victorious. It defeated challenges by Progressives on the left and isolationists and advocates of all-out war with communism on the right. But the national security philosophy does not capture the full range of presidential thinking and rhetoric about postwar America's role in the world. The militaristic national security ideology was sometimes tempered by the flexibility of a hegemonic power and visions of a more orderly, peaceful world.
During the modern era, the international system has often been dominated by a single hegemonic power. This plays a key role in ordering the world system. Since the hegemon benefits more than any lesser power from the status quo, it tends to act not only in its own narrow national interests but also to preserve the overall system.
In the nineteenth century the British were such a hegemonic power. The Industrial Revolution catapulted Britain ahead of other world powers and allowed it to conquer an empire on which "the sun never set." The British came to see the preservation of the global status quo as key to the maintenance of their predominant position in world affairs. They developed the theories of balance of power and free trade that equated the interests of the world capitalist system with those of the British Empire.
In the twentieth century, however, the costs of two world wars ended British hegemony. In the postwar world the United States stepped into the role the British had previously played. Now that the United States was the predominant military and economic power, it began to take on the task of organizing the world capitalist system.
U.S. policy-makers were now committed to preserving the status quo, making stability in the world system an overarching national goal. NATO, other military alliances, and even the early United Nations were attempts to maintain stability through organizing the major nonsocialist powers into a cohesive bloc. On the economic level, the dollar became the key currency of international trade. The United States pressed hard to integrate the economies and political systems of its allies in western Europe and to open the less-developed world to Western economies.
The Conference at Bretton-Woods began to structure
the post-World War II global economic systemThe American view of the responsibilities of world leadership sometimes led policy-makers to act in ways that favored the development and maintenance of the world system over a more narrow view of U.S. interests. The United States encouraged the recovery of Germany and Japan and the integration of western Europe even though this meant aiding potential rivals. The United States bore the costs of global military commitments that probably could not be justified on a narrow cost-benefit calculation of immediate national gain. The United States articulated a theory of free trade even though this sometimes meant penetration of U.S. markets by foreign competitors. These are some instances of what can be called hegemonic flexibility, of putting international stability over narrow U.S. interests.
The position of hegemonic flexibility also led in somewhat different directions than the national security ideology in steering the U.S. approach to the Soviet Union. A hegemon wants to maintain its position and is willing to use military force to do so. It did not become the hegemon by being pacifistic. But a hegemon also recognizes that it has the most to lose from general war, and this is, of course, even more true in the nuclear age. A hegemon recognizes it has many tools to influence the behavior of its rivals, military force being only one.
Policy-makers who were confident about America's hegemonic position tended to take a less confrontational approach to the Soviet Union. They emphasized the carrot as well as the stick in dealing with the communist world. A hegemon is aware of its predominant power position and thus is willing to make limited concessions to rivals, as long as these concessions do not threaten its predominance. A hegemon recognizes situations when it is less costly and even preferable to co-opt rather than to decisively defeat major rivals. Every president at one time or another tried to overcome the massive differences between the American and Soviet political systems and national interests and to realize their shared stake as world powers in the nuclear age.
Every postwar president made dramatic proposals to reduce cold war tensions. Every U.S. president of the postwar era met with Soviet leaders at summits. Truman proposed sharing atomic technology and eventual atomic disarmament. Eisenhower proposed the "open skies" plan to deal with the problem of verifying compliance with nuclear and other military accords. Kennedy signed the limited nuclear test ban treaty.The problems that concern us are not inherently insoluble. . . . They seem insoluble under conditions of fear, distrust, and even hostility, where every move is weighed in terms of whether it will help or weaken a potential enemy. If those conditions can be changed, then much can be changed. . . . We know that a mutually dependable system for less armament on the part of all nations would be a better way to safeguard peace and to maintain our security. back to top
None of these plans changed the fundamental nature of the cold war or the commitment of these presidents to the national security ideology. But they did show that even as the national security ideology held sway, other ideas about how the United States should approach the world were circulating. All presidents had to contemplate the limits of U.S. power and the realities of what a new world war would mean. The American people were restless at the ever-growing commitments to foreign trouble spots and the growing specter of nuclear annihilation.
Of all the postwar presidents, perhaps John Kennedy expressed American hopes for world peace most eloquently. Kennedy had run for president as a more militant cold warrior than his predecessor. He had taken the country to the brink of nuclear holocaust over Soviet missiles in Cuba. But the Cuba confrontation had demonstrated the danger of endless confrontation in a nuclear age. Kennedy's remarks around the time of the test ban treaty show a willingness to reexamine the premises of the cold war and the national security ideology.
Kennedy on World Peace
Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament—and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe we must re-examine our own attitude—as individuals and as a nation—for our attitude is as essential as theirs.
Too many of us think [peace] is impossible. . . . But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.
Let us re-examine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. Both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race.
. . . For in the final analysis, our most common link is that we all inhabit the same planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we all are mortal.
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THE VIETNAM WAR AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY IDEOLOGY back to topThe period of good feeling between the superpowers that the test ban treaty engendered was short-lived. Even as they were signing the test ban, the United States and the Soviet Union were deepening their commitments to their respective allies in Vietnam.
Vietnam had been part of the French colony of Indochina. During the second world war it had fallen to the Japanese. After the war the French tried to regain control aided by the United States. The anticolonial forces, led by Ho Chi Minh and the Communist Party, were able to prevent the French from succeeding. In 1954 the Geneva accords divided French Indochina into four territories: Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. North Vietnam was under the control of the communists. South Vietnam was put under control of pro-Western forces.
The division of Vietnam was never intended as a final political outcome but as a means for separating hostile forces and preparing for national reunification. Elections to reunify Vietnam were promised but never held because the South Vietnamese and their Western backers knew that the communist hero of decolonization, Ho Chi Minh, would have won. Stymied by the failure of the Geneva accords, communist forces in South Vietnam, aided by the North, began a guerrilla campaign to overthrow the pro-Western regime.
The Truman and Eisenhower administrations had backed the French attempt to regain control of Indochina. The Eisenhower administration had considered sending U.S. troops when the French withdrew in 1954. However, with the memories of Korea still fresh, the United States chose not to intervene directly. But the United States refused to sign the Geneva accords. The Eisenhower administration sent aid to the South Vietnamese regime and backed its refusal to implement the Geneva agreement. When Kennedy came to power, he saw Vietnam as a case amenable to his doctrine of flexible response to communist expansion. Here was a conflict where new tactics of counterinsurgency could be tested. The Green Berets, the new elite counterinsurgency forces Kennedy had created, were sent to advise and train South Vietnamese forces. Slowly the numbers and the role of U.S. forces expanded. Advisers began going out on combat missions. When, not surprisingly, they came under attack, they were given permission to carry weapons and return fire. By the time of Kennedy's death, 15,000 American troops were conducting regular combat missions.
But the major escalations of the Vietnam War came under Lyndon Johnson. In the 1964 campaign Johnson ran as the peace candidate, while his opponent Barry Goldwater called for stronger U.S. military action. However, even as he talked peace, Johnson was preparing for a wider war. In the summer of 1964, he used a minor clash between U.S. and North Vietnamese ships in the Gulf of Tonkin to build support for escalation of the war. Portraying this incident as a major act of aggression by the North Vietnamese, Johnson requested from Congress the authority to use whatever means he deemed necessary to protect the U.S. forces in Vietnam.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed the House unanimously and drew only two dissenting votes in the Senate. Not until the 1970s was it revealed that Johnson had lied about key details of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. At the time he treated the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as only a precautionary measure. But when in 1965 Johnson decided to commit major U.S. combat forces to the conflict, he used this resolution as a virtual declaration of war giving him authority to escalate the war as he saw fit. From 1965, U.S. forces in Vietnam rose rapidly, reaching over 500,000 at their peak.Text of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.
Section 2. The United States regards as vital to its national interest and to world peace the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. Consonant with the Constitution of the United States and the Charter of the United Nations and in accordance with its obligations under the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, the United States is, therefore, prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom.
Section 3. This resolution shall expire when the President shall determine that the peace and security of the area is reasonably assured by international conditions created by action of the United Nations or otherwise, except that it may be terminated earlier by concurrent resolution of the Congress. back to top
The justifications Johnson used for U.S. involvement in the war bore a remarkable similarity to those used by Truman to explain American commitment in Korea. Both presidents were driven by the national security ideology. Each characterized the communists as the aggressors and pro-Western regimes as innocent victims. Both men saw a larger international communist design of world conquest behind the conflict. In both cases the president claimed U.S. national security was at stake, that the loss of this war would bring on a wider conflict. Of course, the outcomes of the Korean and Vietnam wars were different. The tragedy of Korea was that so much blood was spilled and so many people suffered only to maintain the status quo ante. Still, the tragedy of Vietnam was even greater for Americans. So many lives were lost and so many sacrificed so much, only for the United States to suffer a humiliating defeat.
CONCLUSIONLyndon Johnson on the Vietnam War
International Communist Aggression
North Viet Nam has attacked the independent nation of South Viet Nam. Its object is total conquest. . . . Over this war—and all Asia—is . . . the deepening shadow of Communist China. . . . It is a nation which is helping the forces of violence in almost every continent. The contest in Viet Nam is part of a wider pattern of aggressive purposes.
Global Containment
We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny, and only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure. . . . Around the globe, from Berlin to Thailand, are people whose well being rests in part on the belief that they can count on us if they are attacked. To leave Viet Nam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America's word. . . . Let no one think that retreat from Viet Nam would bring an end to conflict. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another. The central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next. back to top
In the middle third of the twentieth century internationalism triumphed over isolationism as the basis of U.S. foreign policy. In the wake of the second world war the United States emerged as the strongest military, economic, and political power in the world. But the United States did not feel secure in its newly won status. The Soviet Union arose as a major rival to U.S. power. In addition, the appearance of nuclear weapons had changed great power politics forever. The response of U.S. policy-makers to these new conditions was the development of the doctrines of the national security state. The United States embarked on a global mission to contain communism with the Soviet Union. Central to this strategy was the accumulation of massive stockpiles of nuclear weaponry. The United States conducted a cold war against the Soviet Union, counterinsurgency in the Third World, and conventional wars in Korea and Vietnam. However, the failure of the national security ideology in Vietnam led to new questions about the ideological foundations of U.S. foreign policy. back to top
back to topWeb sites marked with * provided images for this chapter. Many images also are linked to the web site from which they originated.White House links to all former presidents' official libraries a good linking point if you want to study the official documents of several different presidents
The National Archives links to all former presidents' official libraries Another route to the presidential libraries
*NAIL Digital Images Search Search the National Archives and Records Administration for online presidential documents
*The Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library
The John Kennedy Presidential Library
John Kennedy: A New Generation click on speeches icon to get several key Kennedy speeches
The Dwight Eisenhower Presidential Library
*The Harry Truman Presidential Library
*The Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library
*FDR Cartoons Political cartoons about FDR and the New Deal
C-SPAN State of the Union files watch State of the Union messages of presidents back to 1989. Transcripts of State of the Union messages available back to 1945
History and Politics Out Loud audio files of presidents in office, with transcripts also available. Many files available for Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, and John Kennedy
Inaugural Addresses The Inaugural Address is a key speech made when presidents are sworn into office. This site has them all
Speeches of the Presidents Inaugural Addresses, State of the Union Messages, and selected nomination acceptance speeches and war messages
The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden Highly recommended. Prepared by The Center for the Study of the Presidency, a leading group of scholars who study the presidency
Presidents of the United States Links to info on all American presidents. For each president it gives a brief biography, election results, cabinet members, chronology of major events, links to other internet biographies, links to key historical documents of the era, and other related links
The American President Biographies of each president and several essays on the presidency. Links to historical documents and other web resources. Each biography includes many links, including definitions of key terms
The American Presidency links to encyclopedia articles on each president and related subjects
Biographies of the American Presidents Biographies of each president. If the music file irritates you as much as it does me, click on the upper left to stop it
The Yale Law School Avalon Project Large collection of official papers on several presidential administrations. You can also find many international and congressional documents at their Major Collections page
Presidents' Day Links to resources on several key presidencies
Leadership Links on several presidents and articles on the presidency
The Political Resources Page Provides links for each president
University of Colorado Presidents Online Page links and explanations of many presidency web sites but too many dead links
