Worried about America’s position in the world, he quickly set out to develop a new strategy that would serve the United States over the long term. Soviet hostility had taken on a new face in the age of atomic weapons, jet aircraft, and powerful missiles. The United States had ended the war against Japan with two atomic bombs and had, for a brief time, enjoyed a global monopoly on these terrifying weapons. But the Soviets had closed the atomic gap by 1949, and there was every reason to believe that they would acquire a thermonuclear weapon soon after the United States tested its hydrogen bomb in 1952. Eisenhower understood that the destructive force of the new weapons changed forever the manner in which military force could be deployed and national interests defined and defended.6 The strategic and tactical implications of the new age were as yet ill-defined, but Ike was determined to clarify this situation for the nation’s friends and enemies.
In Washington, DC, there was thus much to worry about in 1953. Even America’s best friends seemed to be inching to the left, toward the USSR and away from the United States. In Ike’s view, America had already weathered “eight post-war years of suspicion and fear,” and the international situation appeared to be getting even more threatening.7 Within NATO, the British had nationalized major industries and created a formidable welfare state that made American leaders nervous. Similar changes were taking place in France, and in Italy there appeared to be some chance that the communists would come to power through democratic elections. All of Eisenhower’s earlier efforts to strengthen NATO seemed to be in danger from within. With whom would Americans trade if Europe slid further toward a socialist or communist future?
For help in dealing with these threats, Ike did the first thing any leader must do promptly and well: he built a national security team. He well understood that “success is going to be measured, over the long term, by the skill with which the leader builds a strong team around him.”8 The process—as with the team for domestic policy—was almost completed before the end of November 1953. The linchpin was John Foster Dulles, who had worked closely with the president-elect through the campaign. As secretary of state, Dulles would bring to the new administration his worldwide contacts and his long experience in foreign relations. Defense would go to America’s leading industrialist in the 1950s, Charles Wilson of General Motors. Eisenhower’s legislative liaison (and later chief of staff) would be Major General Wilton B. “Jerry” Persons; in 1954, Colonel Andrew J. Goodpaster would provide staff support and would gradually assume an important role in handling national security issues.
The new team’s contribution to policy came soon after Ike’s inauguration. Then consultation and a formal internal process of planning—Project Solarium—gave the newly elected president the grand strategy he would implement for the United States. Ike hoped that strategy would survive through his next four years in office and maybe beyond his presidency.9 He would continue to support the general policy of containing communist power initially drafted under President Truman; Ike was committed to “the basic truth that only in collective security was there any real future in the free world.”10 He would attempt through overt and covert means to keep pressure on the communist regimes and would use the threat of thermonuclear war to block Soviet expansion into areas considered vital to America’s interests. The covert, Machiavellian elements of international policy would be developed gradually by the Central Intelligence Agency. The well-publicized military version of the Eisenhower strategy was the “New Look,” with its emphasis upon strategic aircraft, missiles, and atomic, then nuclear, weapons.11
Eisenhower rejected the Truman administration’s effort to build up the country’s traditional forces. As he explained to a Republican congressman from Kansas, “Our plan for national security, in contrast to earlier programs, envisages a long-range undertaking capable of continuing national support. It seeks to avoid the exceedingly costly, demoralizing, short-range effort premised upon an imaginary date of maximum danger and incapable of being sustained for a prolonged period. It will provide us with solid military force based on a dynamic economy, both capable of rapid expansion in an emergency.”12
His goal was to avoid that “emergency.” World War III would, Ike had realized, not be fought with massive arrays of tanks or battleships. There would be no trench warfare, no advances from mountain chain to mountain chain, no encirclements or tactical withdrawals. There would not be time for all that. As he explained in 1955: “Due to the destructiveness of modern weapons and the increasing efficiency of long-range bombing aircraft, the United States has reason, for the first time in its history, to be deeply concerned over the serious effects which a sudden attack could conceivably inflict upon our country. Our first objective must therefore be to maintain the capability to deter an enemy from attack and to blunt that attack if it comes.”13 Such a war would be over quickly and would result in the most horrific loss of life and destruction of urban civilization that anyone could possibly imagine.14
For the next four years and then for a second term, Eisenhower would have his hand on one of the two triggers that could launch that destruction on world civilization. If confronted by a full-scale Soviet nuclear attack, would he have pulled the trigger? We will never know. But this was the man who gave the order to attack the Continent on D-Day. He was, I believe, fully prepared to make the decision called for by the strategy he had now formulated for his country.15
The Korean Contradiction
The Cold War had forced the United States and its allies to become deeply involved in the affairs of states with which most Americans were unfamiliar. That was certainly true of the Korean War, which was being fought in a distant country that few Americans had visited and very few understood. Japan (now America’s ally) had occupied and exploited Korea for many years. Since 1945, however, Korea had been an independent nation, divided between a communist North and a capitalist South, the latter linked to the United States. In 1950, North Korea launched a nearly successful invasion in an attempt to unify the nation. Pushed back by US forces armed with UN authority, the North was on the edge of total defeat when the Chinese army entered the war and drove General MacArthur’s forces back to the 38th parallel. The result was a stalemate and seemingly endless—and fruitless—negotiations over an armistice. This was the sorry mess that awaited Eisenhower after his election in November 1952.
As president, he recognized that he had to solve the nation’s “Asian problem” as soon as possible.16 In the campaign for the presidency Ike had promised to go to Korea—a statement widely interpreted to mean that he would quickly settle a war that had already cost America thousands of casualties. He went in December 1952 as president-elect. The trip was a good opportunity for Eisenhower to discuss policy and formulate positions with his growing team of advisors, but it yielded no quick breakthrough in the negotiations. The ongoing battles produced no breakthroughs, either, and they continued to result in heavy American casualties.17
In South Korea—as in France during World War II—Eisenhower had to deal with a determined, nationalistic leader who had his own agenda for the settlement. Syngman Rhee, the president of the Republic of Korea (ROK), sought unification of the nation on his terms. Since this could not be achieved by the ROK army, Rhee insisted that the United States carry the war forward to total victory. Ike was perturbed. He found Rhee to be “highly emotional, excitable and threatening.”18
As Eisenhower realized, Rhee’s goal could be achieved against the combined North Korean and Chinese forces only by using nuclear weapons. The unwillingness of the Truman administration to authorize General MacArthur to employ these weapons had yielded a unique civil-military struggle that MacArthur, predictably, had lost; Truman had replaced the storied victor of the Pacific War in 1951. Ike was also opposed to using nuclear weapons, believing that this would be likely to broaden the struggle, engulfing Japan and ultimately the USSR in a general war.19
In the strategy that emerged from the Solarium discussions and in President Eisenhower’s careful
ly reasoned approach to America’s national security, the unification of Korea was simply not worth the risk of a general, nuclear war. Ike’s primary focus was on Europe. He wanted to preserve the status quo in Korea and throughout Asia. He wanted to reassure American allies and enemies of his determination to oppose significant communist expansion. So he worked toward a conclusion that would finally be implemented in the summer of 1953. It involved an armistice, which is, all these decades later, still in effect. It left the two Koreas divided. Out of the war came a mutual defense pact between the ROK and the United States guaranteeing that American forces would be used should South Korea be attacked again.20
The nuclear threat had been introduced, and it probably helped persuade the North Koreans, their Chinese saviors, and their Soviet backups to accept an armistice. We may never know whether the establishment of nuclear weapons in the Far East—on Guam, one of the distant outposts of the American empire—altered communist thinking about the strategic importance of the ROK. But, viewed from Eisenhower’s desk in the Oval Office, the basic goal of the new nuclear diplomacy and the New Look military seemed to have been achieved. And the killing had stopped.21
The conclusion was not one that would bring crowds into the streets in America to celebrate the end of the war. I doubt that even America’s military leaders had celebratory dinners after the results emerged. Americans were not accustomed to playing to a tie, which is the way the Korean armistice looked from outside the national security establishment. In that regard, it was an accurate measure of what Americans could expect in the next eight years.
The “unconditional surrender” policy of World War II would become a fond memory for veterans and fodder for historians, but the Cold War and the nuclear age had now transformed international relations. Eisenhower was one of the agents of that transformation, as was his strident secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. Dulles’s role was to provide counsel, to front the administration, and to inspire a measure of fear about how the United States might use its awesome power. But throughout the Korean settlement, Ike was completely in charge of this crucial step in his diplomacy. He was, by the end of 1953, well on his way to becoming the leader of the free world as well as the United States.
Ike and the Revolutionary Impulse
That new crown on the head of the former Kansas boy would become very heavy in the next few years. Stability turned out to be an immodest goal in a world ripped apart by revolutionary movements. The empires of the British and French were falling apart. Under pressure from socialist-nationalist movements in Africa and Asia, the former great powers were forced to withdraw from their colonies. At times they did so gracefully and skillfully. At times they blundered and battled to the end. Either way, they were compelled to withdraw. When Churchill attempted to defend the empires, Ike noted, “The one truth that he chooses to ignore is that any attempt on the part of the old imperialist powers to sustain by force some of their governing positions … would by this time have resulted in resentment, unrest, and possibly bitter conflict.”22 There was an abundance of all three results.
The growing force of the communist movement had a strong influence on this development. A democratic, capitalist ideology had little appeal to revolutionary movements seeking to overthrow democratic, capitalist powers that had long suppressed indigenous peoples. Democracy was a difficult concept to sell when the fight for independence was under way. It was equally difficult to sell when autonomy had been achieved but a new nation was struggling with tribal, religious, or regional divisions.23 The blend of socialism, communism, and nationalism, on the other hand, had a natural appeal. It was an ideology of change. It had proven results apparent to living people for whom the revolutionary pasts of Britain, France, and the United States were dim and distant.24
For Eisenhower, these revolutions posed a series of head-scratching problems. He understood and sympathized with the desires of colonial people to be free and independent. No problem with that. He frequently chided Churchill about his frantic and ultimately unsuccessful efforts to hold the British Empire together.25 So too with the French in Indochina. But when the revolutions blended into the expansion of communist power in the world, his sympathy was weakened by his own dedication to the containment policy and its Solarium variations. Thus, he continued to support French efforts to maintain their Vietnamese colony, although he would not entangle the United States Army in another Asian land war. He had seen enough of that in Korea. As he explained to Paul Hoffman, “The postwar insurrections that began in Vietnam should have awakened the French to the true situation and to the fate that was almost certain to overtake them unless they should act with respect to colonial peoples in a more enlightened fashion. Instead of that, they undertook the formidable, even impossible, task of subduing an insurrection by force.”26
He had to return to that issue when at Dien Bien Phu the French maneuvered themselves into a losing position (surrounded, they were in the “General Custer position”) against the communist forces. Ike offered help but not salvation, and the French lost their control of North Vietnam.27 Eisenhower hoped that American support would enable “a free, stable Viet-Nam” in the South to “make a significant contribution to the strength of the Free World.” But he knew that would depend upon the ability of their government to attain “wider popular support and a broader representative base.”28
The Middle East presented a different situation, and Eisenhower was willing to move forward with American power and replace the British when they no longer had the resources to preserve their long-standing domination.29 In this case, control of oil supplies vital to the American and western European economies was important. Prosperity was the other arm of Ike’s grand strategy for America and its allies. He understood the economic underpinnings of national strength, as we saw in Chapter Ten. At one time the United States had produced more oil than it could use. That was no longer the case. America and western Europe needed Middle Eastern oil supplies, and the oil fields had to be kept out of Soviet control. Hence an active engagement that included covert operations to oust an Iranian prime minister who was opposed to US-British policies.30 Like many such ventures into the internal politics of other nations, Ike’s program was a short-term success and a long-term failure.31
Eisenhower was not, however, prepared to support every effort on the part of Britain and France to hold the positions they were steadily losing. In diplomacy as in economy, the politics of losing positions seldom gets the attention it deserves. The winners draw historians. The losers often become mere foils to the heroes of the winning side. This is apparent in our studies of the Suez crisis in 1956, which was a decisive measure of Ike’s national security policy.32
When the British, French, and Israelis decided to invade Egypt rather than accept Gamal Abdel Nasser’s decision to nationalize the vital Suez Canal, they did so over US protests. Eisenhower was furious about the invasion and the dramatic rift it caused in the alliance structure. He urged the British to avoid using force, but he was ignored. He warned the Israelis that the United States would oppose “clear aggression by any power in the Mid-East,” but he was ignored.33 While Nasser was and would continue to be a problem, the Egyptian president was not the sort of problem that called for a return to gunboat diplomacy. As Ike acknowledged, the situation in the entire Middle East was “a terrible mess.” The Arab-Israel struggle had “no limit in either intensity or in scope.” Unfortunately, even those British and French leaders who had long worked closely with the United States had been oblivious to one of Eisenhower’s fundamental principles: “You cannot resort to force in international relationships because of your fear of what might happen in the future.”34
Under strong pressure from the United States and threats from the Soviets, the Anglo-French-Israeli forces finally ended their assault and restored a tenuous peace.35 The abortive invasion prompted Eisenhower to announce a new Eisenhower Doctrine for the Middle East and to hurry to rebuild the alliances that were essential to his Solariu
m policies. Under Ike’s new doctrine, the United States increased its economic and military aid to friendly nations in the region, and Congress authorized the president to use force to protect those countries.36
The Suez crisis was the most dangerous international conflict of the first Eisenhower administration. It had the potential to create the kind of misunderstandings, mishaps, and nationalistic blunders that Eisenhower feared could inadvertently cause World War III. Staring down his allies was even more difficult for Ike than confronting the nation’s enemies was. He worked hard to avoid another such crisis, but events kept undercutting that effort. Forced repeatedly to improvise in both overt and covert operations, he attempted to respond creatively without violating his basic strategy and weakening America’s alliances.
Those alliances were strained again during Eisenhower’s second term as president. The United States had supported the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek in the struggle over China and had watched with growing apprehension the rise to power of Mao Zedong’s communists and their victory in 1949. The Nationalist retreat to Taiwan left behind an unstable situation that threated to expand into a war, one neither the United States nor China wanted. China was struggling to solidify and strengthen its position at home and in the Far East. The revolution was not really over, as was demonstrated by the tragic experience of the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s and later by Mao’s devastating Cultural Revolution.
Eisenhower Page 21