COLD WAR AROUND THE WORLD
Truman
+
Eisenhower +
Marshall
=
containment
Dulles
=
rollback + massive retaliation
John Foster Dulles, as Secretary of State for Pres. Eisenhower, provided even
stiffer resistance of Communism than the Truman Doctrine did
his policy of rollback sought the return of Communism to the boundaries
established BEFORE WWII (good luck! only the USSR would be
Communist under those terms)
more talk than action; more slogan than policy -- USSR was NOT about to
abandon all of its satellites to shrink to pre-war levels!
but the US faced issues throughout the Third World during Ike’s terms in office
Middle East problems centered upon the former British colony of Palestine, which
declared its independence (with Britain’s OK) and created Israel in 1948
the Jewish population of Israel kicked out the Arab Palestinians (or, at least, made
them so uncomfortable and unsafe that they felt they had to leave)
and then Iran got into the act, by nationalizing the oil fields of the AngloAmerican Oil Company
from Iranian perspective, the British had been plundering Iranian oil for decades
from British/American perspective, they had spent a LOT of money developing
those oil fields (something the Iranians NEVER could have done by
themselves) and it wasn’t fair at all to just seize the oilfields
Ike ordered the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency, led by Allen Dulles, the little
brother of the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles) to plot the overthrow
of the Iranian government (led by Mohammed Mossadegh) by linking him
to Communists -- US backed the installment of the Shah of Iran,
Reza Pahlavi
Suez War -- Egyptians (Gamel Abdel Nasser) played Americans off against
Soviets -- when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal and banned Israeli ships,
Israel attacked Egypt, and GB & France jumped in on the side of the
Israelis, since their economic interest were at stake (potentially losing the
Suez Canal, which was privately held by British and French business
concerns) -- Ike was ticked off that GB & France would attack Egypt w/o
even giving him a “heads up”, so he backed a UN resolution condemning the
invasion of Egypt, so GB, France & Israel backed off, very reluctantly
Hungarian uprising kind of shows how hypocritical the Eisenhower/Dulles policy
of rollback really was -- here, liberty-seeking patriots in Hungary fought
against Communist rule, with rifles against tanks -- US stood by & did
nothing to assist the rebels, supposedly because Hungary was so inaccessible
Guatemala was just like Iran: the CIA financially backed an uprising/revolution
against an anti-American government that we claimed was pro-Communist,
primarily because it nationalized the American-owned United Fruit Co. -once a pro-US government was established by the rebels, United Fruit got its
possessions back, but it fostered ill will against America once it became
clear to Latin America and the world what the CIA was up to
Ike & Dulles also helped to destabilize with their policy of massive retaliation -rather than spending massive amounts of $$ on every little war that the
Communists threatened throughout the world, we threatened that, in the
future, we were just going to “cut to the chase” and launch a massive
nuclear attack on the USSR, if they kept up these annoying little wars -MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) was certainly that (mad) as it was a
game of chicken that threatened the very existence of the planet
when Joseph Stalin died in 1953, we saw a chance at changing things -- some say
that the chance was to calm things down after the death of a dictator, but
others might argue that the US saw a chance to gain an advantage
throughout the world, now that the strong-willed Stalin was gone and a
presumably weaker successor (Nikita Khrushchev) was in place -- the US,
quite frankly, underestimated Khrushchev’s strength; they saw his
willingness to talk as a weakness, when all it was was a willingness to talk
(or at least a willingness to APPEAR to be willing to talk)
real chances to talk disappeared when Francis Gary Powers was shot down
piloting his U-2 over the USSR in May 1960 AND, to make matters worse,
Eisenhower originally lied and said it never happened
Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower
John Foster Dulles = Secretary of State
Allen Dulles = CIA
Palestine Israel
Iran nationalizes Anglo-American Oil Co.
Mohammed Mossadegh Reza Pahlavi
Egypt = Gamel Abdel Nasser
Suez Canal
Hungarian uprising
Guatemala nationalizes United Fruit Co.
Joseph Stalin dies
Nikita Khrushchev