Foreign Policy

Eisenhower through the Fall of Saigon

Cold War

Reasons for tension?– Second-front delay– Soviet desire to protect Western border– Insistence by Western allies on free

elections– Soviet military position at Yalta– Atomic bomb

Methods by which CW fought

Threats Arms race Espionage Economic and military aid Limited wars Peacetime alliances

U.S. Policy to handle perceived Soviet threat? Containment: Truman

– Truman Doctrine– Marshall Plan– NATO– Significance of Election of 1948?

Crises– Berlin June 1948-May 1949

National Security Act 1947: Dep. Of Defense, CIA, NSC-68

How does Eisenhower deal with the following things?--John Foster Dulles and “brinkmanship”--Guatemala--Iran: Mossadeq and the Shah--French Indochina/Dien Bien Phu--Egypt and Nassar--Khrushchev and his visit to the U.S.

How does Kennedy deal with the following things:--military spending (ICBMs, etc.)--Cuba: Bay of Pigs and Castro--Cuban Missile Crisis

Eisenhower

“Brinkmanship” End cold war or at least relax tensions abroad, but

not at home!– Hydrogen bomb 1952– Advisor Dulles and “Massive retaliation”

Crises– Korea– Covert Operations: Guatemalan Guzman overthrown by CIA

in 1954 (Operation PBSUCCESS), Overthrow of anti-Western Mossadeq and replacement of Iran Shah 1953 (Operation Ajax)

Shah Palahvi and his wife, John Foster Dulles, and Jacobo Arbenz Guzman

Eisenhower, cont’d

French Indochina: Dien Bien Phu falls, 1954, Geneva Conference 17th parallel, Ngo Dinh Diem, Viet Cong, Ho Chi Minh

Hungarian Revolution 1956 Middle East

– Suez Canal, Aswan Dam, role of USSR/Britain/France, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Eisenhower Doctrine

Fall of Dien Bien Phu, 1954

New Hope: Peaceful Coexistence

Soviet Leader: Khrushchev, attempts at arms control, Sputnik

Khrushchev’s visit U2 Incident

Eisenhower Doctrine: U.S. will use force ANYWHERE in the Middle East against “aggression from any country controlled by international communism.”

(Really just reiterated CONTAINMENT POLICY.)

Kennedy: Flexible Response

Tactics: ICBMs, conventional weapons, special forces: $6 Billion jump in spending

OAS, Alliance for Progress, Peace Corps Crises

– Berlin August 1961– Bay of Pigs April 1961– Missile Crisis October 1962: arms race escalation– Vietnam

Berlin, August 1961

Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1961

Cuban Missile Crisis: October 1962

Johnson

Upheld previous policies Crises

– Canal Zone rioting 1965– Dominican Republic 20,000 Marines sent– Vietnam– Six Day War

The Tet Offensive: Turning Point

• January 31, 1968

• VC sneak in weapons through Ho Chi Minh Trail (Laos and Cambodia)

• Launched surprise attacks all over South Vietnam

Viet Cong did not WIN…

• But proved they were nowhere NEAR surrender

• Johnson, demoralized, tired, and frustrated, announced in March 1968 he would not seek re-election.

Richard Nixon and Vietnamization

• 1968-1974

• “Withdrawal with honor”

• But VC attacks got stronger

• Ordered secret bombings of Laos and Cambodia April 1970

• Kent State Killings May 4, 1970

Failed Peace Talks

• Kissinger tries to get peace deal reached, but doesn’t succeed until 1973

• Watergate scandal in 1974 forces Nixon to decide to resign

President Gerald Ford

• April 30, 1975, orders all US personnel to evacuate Saigon

• Pulled off roof-tops, left South Vietnamese behind to be “re-educated”

• Saigon Falls: renamed Ho Chi Minh City

Fall of Saigon to Communists

Legacy of Vietnam Today?

• Approximately 58,000 US deaths

• Lack of trust in US government and foreign policy

• Social changes at home

• Instability in Vietnam and Southeast Asia: millions of Vietnamese dead, wounded, and homeless

• War Powers Act, 1973

Operation Babylift: April 1975

Plane crashThe first military evacuation flight, a C-5A Galaxy cargo plane loaded with over 300 crew, children and adult escorts, experienced an "explosive rapid decompression" about 40 miles (64 km) outside Saigon when the rear ramp and pressure door blew out through the rear of the aircraft (due to a lock failure) and was forced to return to Tan Son Nhut with no flight controls to the tail, and only limited roll control.The plane could not reach the airport; but instead crash-landed, at about 270 knots (500 km/h), two miles (3 km) away into a field of flooded rice paddies, killing 138 people, including 127 of the orphans. However, over half of the passengers survived the crash. Most of the infants and adults in the upper deck areas survived. Those in the lower decks, including most of the adult "chaperones", "non-essential" members of the Defence Attache's Office (mainly administrative staff), did not.News of the plane crash brought widespread attention and sympathy toward the operation and the evacuees in the U.S. and other nations.