17. For a controversial account that discounts the CIA role in stirring up the anti-Mossadeq crowd, see Takeyh, “What Really Happened in Iran.”
18. Eisenhower received updates from General Cabell describing the situation in Tehran as it was unfolding. Gen. Charles Cabell to the president, “To Stevens for the President: Comment on the Iranian Situation,” undated (probably August 19, 1953), Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, International Series, box 29, DDEL; minutes of the NSC meeting, August 27, 1953, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, NSC Series, box 4, DDEL. An excellent account of the coup is Mark J. Gasiorowski, “The 1953 Coup d’État against Mossadeq,” in Gasiorowski and Byrne, Mohammad Mossadeq, 227–60.
19. NSC Planning Board, “U.S. Policy toward Iran,” December 21, 1953, White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Records, NSC Series, Policy Papers Subseries, box 8, DDEL; Nixon in the NSC, December 24, 1953, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, NSC Series, box 5, DDEL.
20. Ike’s public remark in a speech on October 28, 1954, in PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 981; Papers as President, DDE Diaries Series, October 8, 1953, box 4, DDEL (passage redacted in DDE published papers); letter to Edgar Eisenhower, November 8, 1954, PDDE, 15:1387. Eisenhower’s 1963 memoir gives an utterly misleading account of events in Iran in the 1951–53 period (Mandate for Change, 159–66).
21. Two essential studies provide the foundation for these pages: Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, and Cullather, Secret History. Cullather’s book was written as a classified internal CIA history and released to the public—with many passages redacted by CIA censors—five years later.
22. New York Times, May 21, 1952. The degree to which Arbenz aligned himself with the goals of the communists is a subject of debate. Richard Immerman’s pioneering history, published in 1982, refutes the Eisenhower administration’s argument that Arbenz was a communist fellow traveler (The CIA in Guatemala, 183). Piero Gleijeses, drawing on a much wider array of sources, argues that Arbenz was in fact imbued with socialist ideas and sympathetic to the goals of the Guatemalan communists. (Shattered Hope, 134–48).
23. Cullather, Secret History, 28–32.
24. “Communism in the Free World: Capabilities of the Communist Party, Guatemala,” January 1, 1953, FRUS, Guatemala, 56–66; letter from Schoenfeld to Armstrong, February 13, 1953, FRUS, Guatemala, 67–70; NSC 144/1, “United States Objectives and Courses of Action with Respect to Latin America,” FRUS, 1952–54, 4:6–10.
25. “NSC Guatemala,” draft policy paper prepared in the Bureau of the Inter-American Affairs, August 19, 1953, FRUS 1952–54, 4:1077–86; New York Times, August 1 and 14, 1953.
26. George Morgan, “Memorandum for the Record,” August 12, 1953; “Memorandum,” J. C. King to Allen Dulles, August 17, 1953; “Memorandum,” King to Wisner, August 27, 1953; “Memorandum for the Record,” September 1, 1953; “Memorandum for the Record,” September 11, 1953, all in FRUS, Guatemala, 86–89, 91–94, 102–9.
27. Wisner’s September 11 memorandum and minutes of his September 15 conversation with Dulles, FRUS, Guatemala, 102–10.
28. “Draft Memorandum for the Record, November 12, 1953, and “Contact Report,” November 16, 1953, FRUS, Guatemala, 141–36. Wiley quoted in New York Times, October 17, 1953. Dulles to Wisner, December 9, 1953, FRUS, Guatemala, 155–56.
29. Wisner to PBSUCCESS Headquarters, June 30, 1954, FRUS, Guatemala, 409.
30. Discussion in NSC, July 2, 1954, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, NSC Series, box 5, DDEL.
31. NSC 5412, March 15, 1954, FRUS, 1950–55: The Intelligence Community, 475–78. Compare to NSC 10/2, June 18, 1948, FRUS, 1945–50: Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, 713–15.
32. NSC 5408, “Draft Policy of Continental Defense,” FRUS 1952–54, 2: pt. 1, 609–24. This anxiety about the increase in Soviet weapons capabilities dominated NSC discussions in mid-1954. See NSC 5422/1, August 7, 1954, FRUS 1952–54, 2: pt. 1, 715–31.
33. The first inquiry to Doolittle was on July 2, 1954, in a letter from the White House to Gen. Lauris Norstad, supreme commander of allied powers, Europe, in DDO, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4mdYi0. Eisenhower’s approval, July 13, 1954 in DDO, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4mddo4; Eisenhower’s directive to Allen Dulles, July 26, 1954, in DDO, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4mdfxX. “Report on the Covert Activities of the CIA,” September 30, 1954, CIA Reading Room, http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/45/doolittle_report.pdf.
34. Conversation notes, Doolittle and Eisenhower, October 19, 1954, DDO, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4mdot7.
35. Killian, Sputnik, Scientists and Eisenhower, 68–69, 71. On the purpose and members of the Killian committee, see James Killian to Donald Quarles, September 2, 1954, White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952–61, Special Assistant Series, Subject Subseries, box 7, DDEL. For a useful review, see Damms, “James Killian, the Technological Capabilities Panel, and the Emergence of Eisenhower’s ‘Scientific-Technological Elite.’ ”
36. “The Report to the President of the Technological Capabilities Panel of the Science Advisory Committee: Meeting the Threat of a Surprise Attack,” February 14, 1955, and NSC memorandum, “Characteristics of the Timetable of Change in Our Military Position Relative to Russia,” November 2, 1955, White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952–61, Special Assistant Series, Subject Subseries, box 16, DDEL; Killian, Sputnik, Scientists, and Eisenhower, 71–76.
37. “Report of the TCP,” February 14, 1955, and memorandum of discussion, NSC, March 17, 1955, FRUS, 1955–57, 19: National Security: 41–56, 63–68. On the ICBM program and the sudden surge in that research effort, see Gainor, “The Atlas and the Air Force.”
38. R. Cargill Hall, the emeritus chief historian of the National Reconnaissance Office, has written extensively on overflights. See especially “Clandestine Victory: Eisenhower and Overhead Reconnaissance in the Cold War,” in Showalter, Forging the Shield; Hall and Laurie, “Denied Territory”; Hall and Laurie, Early Cold War Overflights. In that collection, see in particular the paper by Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster, “Cold War Overflights: A View from the White House,” 37–46. A lively and well-informed survey of the U-2 is Beschloss, Mayday. For the mostly fruitless experiments with drifting high-altitude reconnaissance balloons set off over the USSR, see Peebles, The Moby Dick Project.
39. Brugioni, Eyes in the Sky, 87.
40. Pedlow and Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance, chapter 1; Killian, Sputnik, Scientists, and Eisenhower, 82; Edwin Land to Allen Dulles, November 5, 1954, FRUS, 1950–55, Intelligence Community, 563–68; memorandum by the DCI, November 24, 1954, and notes on a meeting with the president and Allen Dulles, November 24, 1954, in FRUS, 1950–55: Intelligence Community, 571–74; memorandum of conference with the president by Andrew Goodpaster, November 24, 1954 and memorandum of conversation with Senator Knowland, November 24, 1954 (in which Ike spoke of “knowing so many things”), Papers as President, Ann Whitman Diary Series, box 3, DDEL.
41. Eisenhower comments in NSC meeting, December 1, 1955, FRUS 1955–57, 19:166–70.
CHAPTER 8: ASIAN DOMINOES
Epigraph: Press conference, February 10, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 1035.
1. Los Angeles Times, November 3, 1953.
2. Chicago Tribune, November 1, 1953. Nixon’s account of his trip is in RN, 119–37. See also Gellman, The President and the Apprentice, 170–92.
3. Nixon, RN, 136.
4. “U.S. Policy toward Communist China,” NSC 166/1, and discussion by the NSC on November 5, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, 14: pt. 1, 265–306.
5. For the idea of Asia as a single zone of conflict, see the remarks of Gen. Walter Bedell Smith to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “I have always visualized Asia as one theater,” he said, where Korea and Indochina were the two “flanks” and Taiwan formed
the “central area.” Walter Bedell Smith testimony, February 16, 1954, U.S. Senate, Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, vol. VI, 130.
6. Divine, Eisenhower and the Cold War, 51. For accounts that stress Ike’s reluctance to use military force in Indochina in 1954, see Herring and Immerman, “Eisenhower, Dulles, and Dien Bien Phu”; Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, 173–85; Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, 174–227. One scholar, Melanie Billings-Yun, Decision against War, asserts that Eisenhower wanted to avoid intervention but did not wish to bear the political burden of appearing weak in the global fight against communism. So he prevaricated and delayed, avoiding a decision on the matter while claiming that congressional reluctance tied his hands.
7. Logevall, Embers of War, 473. Logevall’s chapter on the crucial debate about intervention is “America Wants In,” 454–80. For a similar argument, see Prados, The Sky Would Fall.
8. For an articulate expression of this view of Eisenhower’s long-term responsibility for the Vietnam War, see Anderson, Trapped by Success.
9. Dulles speech, January 27, 1953, New York Times, January 28, 1953.
10. Joint Chiefs paper, “Current Situation in Indochina,” December 5, 1952, and memo by John M. Allison for Dulles, January 28, 1953, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 311–12, 366–71.
11. Radford remark in memorandum by Allison, February 4, 1953, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 384–86.
12. Memorandum of conversation, March 24, 1953, and Saigon embassy to State Department, May 20, 1953, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 419–20, 571–75.
13. Ambassador Dillon in Paris to Dulles, May 23, 1953, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 579–81, note 1, 590.
14. Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1953. Ike reached out to GOP hawks through Nixon to assure them of the president’s opposition to communist China’s entry into the United Nations. See Eisenhower letter to Richard Nixon, June 2, 1953, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, International Series, box 10, DDEL.
15. State-JCS discussions, July 17, 1953, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 683–89.
16. Dillon to Dulles, July 29, 1953, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 701–3.
17. Memo by Robert Bowie, August 5, 1953; report to the NSC, August 5, 1953; NSC discussion, August 6, 1953, all in FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 713–14, 714–17, 718–19. For Eisenhower’s later approval, NSC discussion, September 9, 1953, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 780–89.
18. Dulles at September 9, 1953, NSC discussion, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 781, 783.
19. New York Times, August 5, 1953. After the speech, in a most delicious act of foreshadowing, Ike went to visit the Boeing aircraft plant in Seattle and watched in awe as a new B-52 Stratofortress made three low-altitude passes over the airfield. Powered by eight turbojet engines and designed to fly at 50,000 feet, beyond the reach of enemy fighters, the B-52 would become the dreadful symbol of American airpower in Vietnam, where it was deployed with lethal effect from the mid-1960s on.
20. Speech of September 2, 1953, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 747.
21. “National Intelligence Estimate,” December 1, 1953, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 894–95; Spector, The United States Army in Vietnam, 182–90. For an excellent discussion of French motives in seizing and fortifying Dien Bien Phu, see Logevall, Embers of War, 381–86.
22. NSC meeting, December 23, 1953, Papers as President, NSC Series, box 5, DDEL.
23. NSC meeting, January 8, 1954, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 947–54; Spector, The United States Army in Vietnam, 195.
24. Notes of meeting with legislative leaders, February 8, 1954, and press conference, February 10, 1954, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 1023–25, 1034–35.
25. Memorandum by Macarthur, January 27, 1954; Dulles to Eisenhower, February 9, 1954; Dulles memo, February 18, 1954; NSC meeting, February 26, 1954, all in FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 998–1000, 1025, 1057, 1079–81.
26. Consul in Hanoi to State Department, January 15, 1954; Ambassador Heath to State, February 22, 1954; NSC meeting, March 4, 1954, all in FRUS, 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 964–66, 1064–67, 1093–97.
27. For a superb account of these anxious weeks, see Logevall, Embers of War, 445–53; also see Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place; Morgan, Valley of Death; Simpson, Dien Bien Phu.
28. Heath to State, March 16, 1954; NSC meeting, March 18, 1953; Heath to State, March 20, 1954, all in FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 1125–26, 1132–33, 1135.
29. Memorandum, March 21, 1954, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 1137–40.
30. The memoirs of the two protagonists differ somewhat on the nature of their March 26 conversation. “This was a proposition whose importance did not escape me,” Ély wrote drolly (Mémoires, 76). Radford thought Ély overstated the case (Jurika, From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam, 390–97).
31. Memorandum, Eisenhower-Dulles conversation, March 24, 1954, Dulles Papers, White House Memorandum Series, box 1, DDEL.
32. NSC meeting, March 25, 1954, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 1163–68.
33. Memorandum by C. D. Jackson, January 18, 1954, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 981–82; Memorandum for the president by Walter Bedell Smith, January 18, 1954, Papers as President, Ann Whitman Diary Series, box 2, DDEL; Walter Bedell Smith testimony, February 16, 1954, U.S. Senate, Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, vol. VI, 113–16.
34. Text of March 29 speech in New York Times, March 30, 1954. Privately Dulles described the speech as necessary “to puncture the sentiment for appeasement before Geneva” (Dulles telephone conversation with Senator William Knowland, March 30, 1954, Dulles Papers, Chronological Series, box 7, DDEL).
35. “The President’s News Conference,” March 31, 1954, American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=10196. Historian Fredrik Logevall contends that the Dulles speech was a call to arms: “It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the two men had made up their minds: all of Indochina would have to be held, with direct American intervention if necessary” (Embers of War, 463). By contrast, Billings-Yun argues that the Dulles speech in fact hugely overstated American willingness to use force and undermined Eisenhower’s more moderate policy (Decision against War, 60).
36. Dulles-DDE telephone conversation, and Dulles-Radford telephone conversation, April 1, 1954, Dulles Papers, Chronological Series, box 7, DDEL.
37. Memorandum, Eisenhower-Dulles conversation, April 2, 1954, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 1210–11; also in Dulles Papers, White House Memorandum Series, box 1, DDEL. Ike liked deception and wanted to keep his enemies guessing about just how far he might go to protect noncommunist states in Asia. His close adviser Gen. Walter Bedell Smith admitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February 1954 that the administration had “no intention of putting ground soldiers into Indochina,” but he hated having to say so in public; he would rather keep the Chinese guessing. “I wish to God that we could leave that suspicion or that fear in their minds.” Walter Bedell Smith testimony, February 16, 1954, U.S. Senate, Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, vol. VI, 111.
38. Memorandum for the Secretary’s File on meeting of April 3 with congressional leaders, April 5, 1954, Dulles Papers, Subject Series, box 9, DDEL.
39. Chalmers Roberts, Washington Post, June 7, 1954, and Reporter, September 14, 1954. Roberts later admitted that McCormack was playing politics with the issue: he wanted the Democrats to look responsible and he wanted to discredit Dulles and the Republicans. Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, 189–95.
40. Dulles-DDE telephone conversation, April 3, 1954, Dulles Papers, Chronological Series, box 7, DDEL.
41. Eisenhower to Churchill, April 4, 1954, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 1238–41.
42. Dillon to Dulles, April 5, 1954, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 1236–38.
43. Dulles-DDE telephone conversation, April 5, 1954, Dulles Papers, Chronological Series, box 7, DDEL.
44. NSC meeting, April 6, 1954, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 125
0–65.
45. NSC meeting, April 6, 1954, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 1257; Cutler memo of conversation with Smith, Radford, and Allen Dulles, April 8, 1954, White House Office, NSC Staff: Papers, Executive Secretary’s Subject File, box 17, DDEL.
46. Press conference, April 7, 1954, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 1280–81.
47. For the outcry about the H-bomb test, see Washington Post, March 26 and 27, 1954; Los Angeles Times, March 14, 1954; Jones, After Hiroshima, 199–234.
48. Memorandum by MacArthur, April 11, 1954, FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 1307–9. For a vivid account of the Dulles-Eden conversations in London, see Logevall, Embers of War, 484–91.
49. Eden, Full Circle, 92–93; Jones, After Hiroshima, 194–95.
50. Dulles telegrams, April 23, 1954, and Dulles and Radford meeting with Eden, April 24, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, 13: pt. 1, 1374, 1375, 1386–91. Undersecretary Bedell Smith kept Ike informed: see his notes of his telephone calls to the president, April 24 and April 26, 1954, Papers as President, DDE Diary Series, box 5, DDEL.
51. Eden, Full Circle, 99–106. The detailed to-and-fro of British diplomacy in this period is memorably captured in the diary of Eden’s private secretary: Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez, esp. 161–79; and see Logevall, Embers of War, 501–7.
52. Letter to Al Gruenther, April 26, 1954, and diary entry, April 27, 1954, Papers as President, DDE Diary Series, box 4, DDEL; letter to Swede Hazlett, April 27, 1954; Hagerty diary extract, April 26, 1954; meeting with legislative leaders, April 26, 1954, all in FRUS 1952–54, 13: pt. 2, 1426–27, 1410–12, 1412–14; Robert Cutler memorandum of conversation between Eisenhower, Dulles, Cutler, and Douglas MacArthur II, May 5, 1954, White House Office, Office of Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Records, NSC Series, Briefing Notes Subseries, box 11, DDEL. In this discussion Dulles described the British as “scared to death” and “beguiled by the soft talk of the Russians.”
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