Students will examine the roots of 1950's American foreign policy and how mistakes made led to the Vietnam War.

1. Part II: Eisenhower Years; 1952-1956 Friday, April 26
US History
Objectives: Students will discuss the direction change of domestic and foreign policies during the
Eisenhower administration.
From Carol Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope” pgs.863-869.
Three Regional Pacts: NATO, CENTRO and SEATO- the players
NATO: U.S., Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Iceland, Turkey
CENTRO: Britain, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan
SEATO: United States, Britain, France, New Zealand, Australia, Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan
The Baghdad Pact of 1955 (later called CENTRO) was largely a Dulles creation but did not include the United
States. Its members were Britain, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan. It was renamed Central Treaty Organization
in1959 when Iraq withdrew and the United States signed bilateral alliances with all its members. The third pact,
SEATO, signed in 1954, had eight members (United States,Britain, France, New Zealand, Australia, Philippines,
Thailand, and Pakistan). With Turkey acting as a link between NATO and CENTRO, and Pakistan in a similar role
between CENTRO and SEATO, the three pacts were intended to enclose the Soviet bloc in an unbroken
perimeter of paper barriers which would deter a Communist movement outward anywhere, by serving as a
trigger for American retaliation. Otherwise, CENTRO and SEATO had little military or political merit, and
created more problems than they solved.
1. What was the intention behind NATO, CENTRO and SEATO? Explain.
Dulles was not primarily concerned about the military strength of these pacts or about
the military contribution any of these countries could make to a war on the Soviet Union.
Above all, he was not concerned with any contribution of a military character the United
States could make to the defense of these pacts or areas in any non-nuclear war.
Moreover, as triggers, Dulles was not much concerned with the character of the regimes
involved or with their military strength.Some mountainous country or tropical jungle of
Asia was, for his purposes,about as significant as England or France.
Since England and France were already alienated by the whole idea of massive
retaliation, which could so easily, by some independent American act, deluge them with
Soviet nuclear bombs, they were even further alienated by Dulles's almost total lack of
concern for the fact that they were more cultured and more civilized than other members
of Dulles's pacts,that they shared our common Western traditions (of which, indeed, they
were the creators), and could contribute more to their own defense with conventional
weapons than could some Moslem or pagan areas of Asia. It is no wonder that Dulles,
with his unilateralism, his lack of concern for cultural kinship, his readiness to sacrifice
all European states in response to a trigger mechanism in some remote and backward
jungle, his almost total unconcern with the possible contribution of limited and
conventionalwarfare to save any areas from Communism, it is no wonder, indeed, that
Dulles alienated the United States from its natural associates in Western Europe to a
degree hitherto unknown in the twentieth century.
2. What was Dulles, with “…his unilateralism, his lack of concern for cultural kinship…”, ready to do?
3. What was the political effect, in Western Europe, of Dulles’ readiness to sacrifice all of them to
warfare, in order to save them from Communism?
At the same time, Dulles alienated himself domestically from all his older associations
within American life, and from the forces of rationalization and science which were
increasingly a force there. Like Eisenhower, Dulles had an unusualconception of his
office; indeed, it was much more unusualthan was Eisenhower's. Dulles refused to take
any responsibility for the internal functioning of the State Department. His concern was,
he thought,only with the high policy of international politics on a world basis as the eyes,
ears, and probably the mind of the President. Accordingly, instead of the usualunder
secretary of state,Dulles appointed two: General Walter Bedell Smith to the regular post,
and Donald B. Lourie, president of Quaker Oats Company, as a second one in charge of

2. all departmental administration. Under Lourie he named a McCarthyite, R. W. Scott
McLeod, as State Department security officer. In this way the full disruptive force of
McCarthyism was brought into the inner fortress, that is, into the personnel security files
of the department against which McCarthy and his associates had directed their most
blasting assaults. Nor was that all. In his first week in office Dulles announced his
policies to the department, and informed its employees that he expected "competence,
discipline,and positive loyalty." There is nothing objectionable in these three qualities
except that Senator McCarthy had temporarily made "positive loyalty" his own criterion
of condemnation.
4. When Dulles brings in McLeod, as State Department security officer, how did this disrupt the State
Department further?
This beginning became worse. Dulles made no effort to protect his subordinates from
the attacks made upon the department or on them individually. His justification for this
attitude soon destroyed the morale of much of the department and especially of the
Foreign Service. Dulles felt that once an employee became the target of a public attack as
unreliable, the question of his guilt or innocence became definitely secondary to the
question of whether his value to the department had not been destroyed simply by the fact
that he had become a subject of controversy. If so, he should be released from service,
even if innocent.
5. How did Dulles feel about a State Department employee who became the target of public attack, under
McCarthy’s interrogations…even if innocent?
This point of view, which was almost an invitation to the McCarthyites
to increase their attacks,was never, however, applied to Dulles himself when he became,
in a short time, a figure of controversy. The real damage to the Department arose from
the elimination of some of its most knowledgeable members. The ... Right, having
eliminated almost everyone who knew anything about the Far East, especially those who
knew the Chinese language, now, under Dulles, shifted their target to those who knew
anything about Russia, especially the language. In this way, George Kennan was
eliminated, and Charles Bohlen narrowly escaped.Paul Nitze resigned in disgust.Some
of those eliminated found refuge in Ivy League academic posts.
6. Describe how the purge of communists, (real or suspected)from the State Dept. affected the functioning of
this office.
The chief victim of these purges was Robert Oppenheimer. The attack on the "father
of the A-bomb" began in the summer of 1953, as soon as Lewis Strauss succeeded
Gordon Dean as chairman of the AEC. On July 7th, at the request of Strauss, the AEC
ordered that classifieddocuments in Oppenheimer's possession in Princeton be taken
from him. On November 7, 1953, W. L. Borden, who had earlier left the Joint
Congressional Committee for private employment with Westinghouse Electric, wrote a
letter to J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI: "The purpose of this letter is to state my own
exhaustively considered opinion, based upon years of study of the available classified
evidence, that more probably than not J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet
Union." This charge was supported by a biased rehash of all the derogatory stories about
Oppenheimer which had been known when Oppenheimer was appointed to Los Alamos
by General Groves in 1943. Much of the letter was made up of wild charges which no
responsible person has ever been willing to defend: "He has been instrumental in securing
recruits for the Communist Party," and "He was in frequent contact with Soviet espionage
agents." According to Borden, "The central problem is not whether J. Robert
Oppenheimer was ever a Communist; for the existing evidence makes abundantly clear
that he was.... The central problemis assessing the degree of likelihood that he in fact did
what a communist in his circumstances, at Berkeley, would logically have done during
the crucial 1939-1942 period—that is, whether he became an actual espionage and policy
instrument of the Soviets."
On the basis of this letter and at the direct order of President Eisenhower, Chairman Strauss suspended
Oppenheimer's security clearance and thus his access to classified information without which scientific work for
defense is impossible.
7. What happened to Robert Oppenheimer as a result of his communist affiliations?

3. Western prestige in Malaysia was irretrievably damaged by the Japanese conquests of
the Philippines, the Dutch Indies, and Malaya in 1942, so that the reestablishment of the
colonial Powers after the Japanese collapse in 1945 was very difficult. Burma and the
Philippines were granted their independence by Great Britain and the United States,
respectively, soon after the war's end. French Indochina emerged from the Japanese
occupation as the three states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, each claiming
independence, while Java claimed sovereignty over the whole Netherlands East Indies as
a newly independent state of Indonesia. Efforts by the European Powers to restore their
prewar rule led to violent clashes with the supporters or independence. These struggles
were brief and successfulin Burma and Indonesia, but were very protracted in Indochina.
Burma became an independent state in 1948, followed by Indochina in 1949, by Malaya
in 1957, and by Singapore (under a special relationship) in 1959.
8. French Indochina emerged from the Japanese occupation of World War II as what three states?
9. Identify what these states were struggling violently against?
Controversy and intermittent fighting between Indonesia and the Dutch over western New Guinea
continued until 1962, when American pressure persuaded the Netherlands to yield, but
left Indonesia, led by Achmed Sukarno, unfriendly to the West.In all these areas, native nationalists
were inclined to the political Left, if for no other reason than the fact that the difficulties of capital
accumulation and investment to finance economic improvements could be achieved only under state
control. But such independent Socialism merged into other points of view which were clearly Communist.
In some cases,such Communism may have been ideological, but in most cases it involved little more than the desire
to play off the Soviet Union or Red China against the Western imperialist Powers.
10. In all the areas of Indochina and Indonesia, what were the natives politically inclined toward? How do you
think previous European colonialism contributed to this political pervasiveness ofSocialism/communism?
Tuesday: Southeast Asia
Objective: Students will investigate early American interests in Southeast Asia,related to attempts to preserve
French colonialism and contain the spread of communism.
The Communists of Southeast Asia were thus Communists of convenience and tactical
maneuver, and originally received little support from the Soviet Union because of Stalin's
well-known reluctance to engage in political adventures in areas where he could not
dominate the armed forces. But in February 1948, the new Cominform sponsored a
Southeast Asia youth conference at Calcutta where armed resistance to colonialism was
demanded. A Communist revolt in the Philippines had already begun and was joined, in
the course of 1948,by similar uprisings in Burma, Indonesia, and Malaya. Most of these
revolts took the form of agrarian agitations and armed raids by Communist guerrilla
jungle fighters. Since these guerrillas operated on a hit-and-run basis and had to live off
the local peasantry,their exploitation of peasant life eventually made them decreasingly
welcome to this very group for whom they pretended to be fighting.
11. What were the Soviet backed Cominform starting in India, in 1948 and where do these militant uprisings
spread to?
In the Philippines the Hukbalahap rebels were smashed in 1953 by the energetic and efficient government of
President Ramon Magsaysay.In Indonesia, Sukarno repressed the insurrection and
executed its leaders. In Malaya, where the Communists were almost entirely from the
Chinese minority, these rebels were systematically hunted down and destroyed by British
troops in long-drawn jungle combat. In Burma, the long Chinese frontier provided a
refuge for the rebels, and they were not eliminated until 1960. These were done without the assistance ofthe CIA.
12. How did the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaya handle these militant communist uprisings?

4. The real problemwas Indochina. There the situation was complex, the French Army
was uncompromising, and Communist leadership was skillful. As a result, the struggle
there became part of the Cold War and contributed to a world crisis.
Indochina brought considerable wealth to France, so that in the late 1930's the Banque
de l'Indochine spawned in France an influential political group, who played a major role
in the defeatism of 1940 and the subsequent collaboration (Vichy French sold out to Nazi
Germany prior to their invasion of France). After the Japanese withdrawal in 1945, the
Paris government was reluctant to see this wealth, chiefly from the tin mines, fall into the hands
of Japanese-sponsored native groups, and, by 1949, decided to use force to recover the area.
13. What did the French colony of Indochina bring to French politics in the war years of 1940?
14. After the Japanese defeat in 1945, what did the Paris government decide to do in Indochina?
Opposed to the French effort was Ho Chi Minh, a member of the French Communist
Party since its founding in 1920, who had subsequently studied in Moscowand had been
leader of the anti-colonial agitations of the Indochinese Communist Party since 1931. Ho
had set up a coalition government underhis Viet Minh Party and proclaimed
independence for Vietnam (chiefly Tonkin and Annam) in 1945, while French troops,in
a surprise coup,seized Saigon in the south.Unfortunately for Ho, he obtained no support
from the Kremlin. The French Communist Party was at that time a major element in the
French coalition government, with its leader, Maurice Thorez, holding the office of vice premier.
Stalin had no wish to jeopardize the Communist chances to take over France by
his support for a remote and minor Communist like Ho Chi Minh. In fact, Thorez signed
the order for military action against Ho's Republic of Vietnam.
15. With The French Communist Party being a major element in the French government, how is it ironic that
they would declare military action against Ho Chi Minh?
At first Ho sought support from the United States and from Chiang Kai-shek, but, after the
establishment of Red China in 1949, he turned to that new Communist state for help.
Mao's government was the first state to give Vietnam diplomatic recognition (January 1950),
and at once began to send military supplies and guidance to Ho Chi Minh. Since the United States was
granting extensive aid to France, the struggle in Vietnam thus became a struggle, through
surrogates, between the United States and Red China. In world opinion this made the
United States a defender of European imperialism against anti-colonial native nationalism.
16. Where did Ho Chi Minh first seek support?
17. The struggle in Vietnam became a struggle between whom? How did the U.S. appear to the rest of the
world?
The intensity of the struggle in Vietnam increased fairly steadily in, a situation which
gave considerable the years following 1947. The creation of the Cominform and the
subsequent Communist withdrawal from the coalition governments of Europe, including
France, freed the Kremlin to support anti-colonial movements in Europe's overseas
territories. At the same time, the reestablished French Army was left with a wounded
pride which became, in some cases,a neurotic drive to wipe out the stains of 1940-1942
by subsequent victories in colonial wars. The growing aggressionof Communist China
and Dulles's fantasies about liberation all contributed to build the Indochina confusion
into a flaming crisis.The final step came from the Korean truce of 1953 which freed Red
China's hands for more vigorous action in the southeast. The defeat of the Communist
risings of 1948 elsewhere in Malaysia turned the new Chinese activities full into
Indochina, which had an open frontier for passage ofChinese Communist supplies and
advisers.
18. How did the growing aggression of Communist China combine with the American position into a full
blown crisis? What was the final step?

5. This intensification of Chinese-supported Communist activities in Vietnam in 1953-
1954 was ... just entering the post-Stalin "thaw" and already moving toward the "Geneva
spirit" of 1955. At the same time, the readiness of Dulles and the French Army to force a
showdown in Vietnam was equally unacceptable to the British and to many persons in
divided France. Out of these confusions came, on February 18, 1954, a Soviet suggestion
for a conference on Indochina to be held at Geneva in April. By the early months of 1954,
the Communist guerrillas were in control of most of northern Indochina, were threatening Laos,
and were plaguing the villages of Cochin-China as far south as Saigon. About 200,000 French troops
and 300,000 Vietnamese militia were tied in knots by about 335,000 Viet Minh soldiers and guerrillas.
France was being bled to death,both literally and financially, with little to showfor it,
but the French Army was obstinate in its refusal to accept anotherdefeat.
19. Which group was in control of most of northern Indochina, and threatening Laos and cities as far south as
Saigon, in 1954?
20. What affect did this have on the French and why didn’t they give up?
Wednesday/Thursday:
Objective: Students will examine root causes of American involvement in the Vietnam conflict.
The French strong point at Dien Bien Phu was invested by Viet Minh on March 13,
1954, and by the end of the month its outer defenses were crumbling. The French chief of
staff, General Ely, flew to Washington and found Dulles willing to risk an all-out war
with Red China by authorizing direct American intervention in Indochina. As usual,
Dulles thought that wonders could be achieved by an air strike alone against the besiegers
of Dien Bien Phu, where the conflict increased in intensity daily. For a few days the
United States,at Dulles's prodding, tottered "on the brink of war." Dulles proposed "a
united action policy" which he described in these terms: "If Britainwould join the U.S.
and France would agree to stand firm,... the three Western states could combine with
friendly Asian nations to oppose Communist forces on the ground just as the U.N.
stepped in against the North Korean aggression in 1950 . . . and if the Chinese
Communists intervene openly, their staging bases in south China [will] be destroyed by
U.S. air power...."
21. What was Dulles willing to do, if Britain and France would agree to “stand firm” in Asia?
President Eisenhower agreed, but his calls to Churchill and Eden found the British
government opposed to the adventure.The foreign secretary hastened to point out that the
Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1950 bound Russia to come to the assistance ofChina if it were
attacked by the United States as Dulles contemplated. Discussion at Geneva, said Eden,
must precede any such drastic action.
22. Who would have likely come to China’s aid, if it were attacked by the U.S.?
Few international conferences have taken place amid such external turmoil as the Far
Eastern Geneva Conference of April 25-July 20, 1954. During it, two American aircraft
carriers, loaded with atomic weapons, were cruising the South China Sea, awaiting orders
from Washington to hurl their deadly bombs at the Communist forces besieging the
15,000 exhausted troops trapped in Dien Bien Phu. In Washington,Admiral Radford was
vigorously advocating such aggressive action on a generally reluctant government. In
Paris, public outrage was rising over Indochina where the French had expended 19,000
lives and $8 billion without improving matters a particle. At Geneva, delegates from
nineteen nations were talking and stalling to gain as much as possible without open
warfare. The fall of Dien Bien Phu on May 7th opened a vigorous debate in the French
Assembly and led to the fall of Premier Joseph Laniel's government, the eighteenth time a
Cabinet had been overturned since the end of World War II in 1945. The new prime
minister, Pierre Mendes-France,promised a cease-fire in Indochina or his own retirement
within thirty days.He barely made the deadline.
23. How close were we to a nuclear war against communist forces taking over Indochina, in 1954?
24. How many lives had France expended, trying to keep Indochina as their colony?

6. The Indochinese settlement of July 20, 1954 was basically a compromise, some of
whose elements did not appear in the agreement itself. A Communist North Vietnam
state, with its capital at Hanoi (Tonkin), was recognized north of the 17th parallel of
latitude, and the rest of Indochina was left in three states which remained associated with
the French Union (Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam).
25. The Indochinese settlement of 1954 recognized what and where was this located?
26. Identify what three states remained associated with the French Union?
The new state systemof Southeast Asia was brought within the Dulles network of
trip-wire pacts on September 8, 1954, when eight nations of the area signed an agreement
at Manila establishing a Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). The eight (United
States, Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, and the Philippines)
made no specific commitments, but set up a council, to meet at Bangkok and operate on a
unanimous basis for economic, social, and military cooperation in the area. By special
protocol they extended their protection to Laos, South Vietnam, and Cambodia.
The Geneva agreement, in effect, was to neutralize the states of Indochina, but
neutrality was apparently not acceptable to the Dulles brothers,and any possible stability
in the area was soon destroyed by their activities, especially through the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) seeking to subvert the neutrality of Laos and South Vietnam.
This was done by channeling millions in American funds to Right-wing army officers,
building up large (and totally unreliable) military forces led by these Rightist generals,
rigging elections, and, when it seemed necessary, backing reactionary coups d’état. These
techniques might have been justified, in the eyes of the CIA, if they had been successful,
but, on the contrary, they alienated the mass of the natives in the area, brought numerous
recruits to the Left, gave justification for Communist intervention from North Vietnam,
disgusted ourallies in Britain and France, as well as many of our friends in Burma, India,
and elsewhere, and by 1962 had almost destroyed the American image and the American
position in the area.
27. The new state systemof Southeast Asia was brought within the Dulles network (SEATO) in 1954, and by
special protocol, they extended this protection to neutralize what three states of Indochina?
28. Describe how the CIA destroyed any possibility of neutrality in Laos and South Vietnam.
In Laos the chief political figure was Prince Souvanna Phouma, leader of the neutralist
group, who tried to keep a balance between the Communist-supported Pathet Lao on his
Left and the American-subsidized politicians and militarists led by General Phoumi
Nosavan on his Right. American aid was about $40 million a year, of which about $36
million went to the army. This was used, under American influence, as an anti-neutralist
rather than an anti-Leftist influence culminating in a bungled army attack on two Pathet
Lao battalions in May 1959, and openly rigged elections in which all the Assembly seats
were won by Right-wing candidates in April 1960.In August 1960, an open revolt in
behalf of the neutralist Souvanna Phouma by Captain Kong Le gave rise to a Right-wing
revolution led by General Phoumi Nosavan.This drove the neutralists into the arms of
the Pathet Lao and to seek direct Soviet intervention. The SEATO Council refused to
support the American position, the Laotian Army was reluctant to fight, and the America
military mission was soon involved in the confused fighting directly. The American
bungle in Laos was repeated, with variations, elsewhere in southern and southeastern
Asia. In South Vietnam, American aid, largely military, amounted to about two-thirds of
the country's budget,and by 1962, when it was running at about $400 million a year, it
had reached a total of $2 billion. Such aid, which provided little benefit for the people,
corrupted the government, weakened the swollen defense forces, and set up a chasm
between rulers and people which drove the best of the latter Leftward, in spite of the
exploitative violence of the Communist guerrillas.
29. How much American money was flowing to Laos to rig elections and fund their army? What affect did this
have on the neutralists of the Pathet Lao?
30. After the SEATO council refused to support the American position, what did the American military
mission become?

7. A plebiscite in 1955 was so rigged that the American-supported Right-wing candidate
won over 98 percent of the vote.The election of 1960 was similarly managed, except in Saigon,
the capital, where many people refused to vote. As might have been expected, denial of a fair ballot
led to efforts to assassinate the American-supported President, Ngo Dinh Diem, and gave rise to
widespread discontent which made it possible for the Communist guerrillas to operate throughout
the country. The American-sponsored military response drove casualties to a high sustained figure by 1962
and was uprooting the peasantry throughout the country in an effort to establish fortified villages
which the British had introduced, with success,in Malaya.
These errors of American policy, which were repeated in other places, arose very
largely from two factors: (1) American ignorance of local conditions which were passed
over in the American animosity against Russia and China, and (2) American insistence on
using military force to overcome local neutralism which the mass of Asiatic peoples
wanted. The ignorance of local conditions was well shown in the American bungling in
Cambodia and in Pakistan.
31. The Saigon election of 1960 was so CIA-rigged that many people refused to vote. This denial of a fair
ballot led to what?
32. Identify the two main errors in American policy, which were repeated in other places.
Week 25 Quiz this Friday:
Go to http://quizlet.com/74225814/week-26-us-history-quiz-flash-cards/