From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (108 page)

Most observers believed that Ho Chi Minh's Vietminh would easily win the elections and unify the country, but the United States and the fiercely anti-Communist South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem had other ideas. The "important thing," Dulles insisted, was "not to mourn the past but to seize the future opportunity to prevent the loss in Northern Vietnam from leading to the extension of communism throughout Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific."
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Despite universally gloomy prospects for success in South Vietnam, the United States made a high-stakes gamble by committing itself firmly to the imperious Diem in late 1954 and standing by him when he almost lost power the following year. Violating the letter and spirit of the Geneva Accords, the United States backed Diem's refusal to participate in the national elections. Through a massive nation-building effort, it set out to construct in southern Vietnam an independent, non-Communist nation that could stand as a bulwark against further Communist expansion in a critical region. To further deter possible aggression, Dulles through extended negotiations in Manila in the fall of 1954 helped establish the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), an eight-nation alliance committed to defending the region from Communism.
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A 1954–55 crisis in the Taiwan Straits posed another major test for massive retaliation and had enormous long-term consequences for U.S.
relations with Taiwan and China. The Chinese-American standoff provides a classic example of the way in which lack of direct communication, misperception, and miscalculation raised the threat of direct conflict during the Cold War, in this case for territory of no real value. In early September 1954, despite previous U.S. efforts at deterrence, the Chinese began shelling Quemoy and Matsu, tiny and strategically unimportant islands off the southeast coast of mainland China still under Nationalist control. Eisenhower and Dulles conceded that the islands were worthless. They did not want war. But neither did they wish to appear weak in the face of a Chinese challenge. They also recognized that Chiang Kaishek might seek to exploit the crisis by sucking the United States into war with China. Mistakenly viewing the shelling as a prelude to Chinese seizure of the islands or even an attack on Taiwan, they experimented with a policy of deterrence through uncertainty, "keeping the enemy guessing," in Eisenhower's words, to head off aggression without getting more deeply entangled with Chiang. The policy had the opposite effect of what was intended, encouraging Mao's government in January 1955 to seize one of the Dachens, another set of offshore islands, in the belief that the United States would do nothing.
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The crisis quickly escalated to the brink of nuclear war. Mao sensed the danger of further moves and did nothing more. Again misperceiving Chinese intentions, the Eisenhower administration saw the Dachens seizure as a prelude to attacks on Quemoy, Matsu, or even Taiwan. The "Red Chinese appear to be completely reckless, arrogant, possibly overconfident, and completely indifferent to human life," the president warned.
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To reassure Chiang and deter Mao, the administration signed a Mutual Defense Treaty with Taiwan (which did not include the offshore islands) and in January 1955 secured from Congress a Formosa Resolution giving the president blank-check authority to respond to Chinese "aggression." It considered preemptive military action, possibly even the use of nuclear weapons against Chinese forces on the islands. Believing war possible, if not likely, it set out, in Dulles's words, to "create a better climate for the use of atomic weapons."
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Eisenhower raised the stakes and set off alarm bells at home and abroad by publicly suggesting on March 16, 1955, that
the United States might use nuclear weapons "as you use a bullet or anything else."
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To persuade Chiang to abandon Quemoy and Matsu, the United States offered to blockade five hundred miles of the Chinese coast opposite Taiwan—an act of war—and place nuclear weapons on the island. Ironically, Chiang sabotaged this most risky escalation by refusing to give up the islands. Tension eased in April when Zhou En-lai at Bandung stunned the world with conciliatory gestures. Under pressure from nervous allies and an anxious public, the United States responded in kind. The two nations would soon initiate sporadic ambassadorial talks in Warsaw to help ease tensions.

Dulles later insisted—and some historians have supported his claim—that the Taiwan Straits crisis marked a victory for massive retaliation. To be sure, the United States avoided war and Taiwan was safe. But the Chinese focused attention on Taiwan, one of their principal aims in the first place, and also gained some Nationalist territory. Eisenhower's vague nuclear threats did not deter attacks on Quemoy, Matsu, or Taiwan—no such attacks were ever intended. The United States might have provoked a war over worthless real estate had it not been for Chiang's fortuitous obstinacy. The president's threats did little to establish U.S. credibility. In fact, they seem to have stiffened Chinese resolve and led Beijing to launch its own nuclear program. By provoking protests at home and among allies, they also raised serious questions about the viability of massive retaliation as the key element of New Look defense policy. More ominously for the long run, the crisis tightened U.S. ties with Chiang and produced more binding U.S. commitments to defend Taiwan, posing insuperable long-term obstacles to any reconciliation with the Beijing regime.
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The United States' credibility was also severely tested by crises in Eastern Europe. During the 1952 campaign, Dulles had rejected containment for an "explosive and dynamic" policy of "liberation" of captive peoples, and liberation at first became the cornerstone of the administration's policies toward Eastern Europe. Eisenhower had seen the value of psychological warfare (psywar) as commander of Allied forces in Europe. He brought to the White House wartime propaganda adviser C. D. Jackson of Time-Life and endorsed his proposal to make psywar the "real guts" of U.S. policy for Eastern Europe. Jackson expanded and perfected programs initiated by the Truman administration. More and better leaflet-dropping
balloons, thinly disguised as weather balloons, were sent out over the region—in all, sixty thousand balloons with three hundred thousand leaflets between 1951 and 1956. Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberation overcame furious jamming to beam broadcasts into Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself. Such propaganda satirized Communist practices and mores, divulged the name of secret police operatives, and openly appealed to dissidents to revolt.
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Such psywar operations did not cause, but certainly encouraged, a series of revolts in Eastern Europe in the 1950s. Jackson had scarcely settled into office when harsh economic conditions in East Germany in June 1953 provoked protests in East Berlin that soon spread across the country, led to calls for a general strike, and eventually sparked widespread rioting. The uprising caught the United States completely off guard. Dulles and other U.S. officials hoped to exploit Soviet problems in East Germany. But they were distracted by Korea, where Rhee's release of prisoners of war imperiled the peace agreement. Attention was also focused on Western Europe, where they were attempting to beef up NATO defenses and begin West German rearmament. Eisenhower insisted that force could not be used. Neither Dulles nor anyone else could devise ways to exploit Soviet troubles. Moscow eventually suppressed the rebellion with twenty thousand troops and 350 tanks. All the United States could do was gain propaganda advantage through a relief program that provided five million food parcels—"Eisenhower Packages"—that fed one-third of East Germany's population. The East German crisis had a sobering effect on the concept of liberation, even Dulles concluding that forceful measures risked destruction of the free world. NSC-174 of December 1953 held to rollback as a long-term goal but tightly circumscribed it by affirming that the United States would not provoke war with the USSR and would seek to prevent "premature" uprisings in Eastern Europe.
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More serious crises erupted in Poland and Hungary three years later. In early 1955, the shrewd reformist Nikita Khrushchev, along with Nikolai Bulganin, took control of the Soviet government. A year later, in his famous keynote speech before a party congress, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's "crimes" and "cult of personality." The speech was not intended to be made public, but within weeks it appeared in newspapers around
the world. Designed to initiate a process of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union and the satellites, it offered to Eastern Europeans hopes of liberalization and spurred uprisings in Poland and Hungary where old-line leaders clung desperately to power. The return of reformer Wyadislaw Gomulka raised fears in Moscow that Poland might break away from the Soviet bloc. Uninvited—and furious—Khrushchev and his entourage descended upon the Warsaw airport on October 19, 1956, backed by Red Army troops a hundred kilometers away. At a stormy session on the tarmac in tones loud enough to be heard by chauffeurs, Khrushchev threatened military intervention. The courageous Gomulka refused to talk with a "revolver on the table." Khrushchev eventually accepted Gomulka's pledges to retain close ties with Moscow and remain in the Warsaw Pact, the military alliance of seven Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union created in May 1955. "Finding a reason for an armed conflict would be easy," the Soviet leader conceded pragmatically, "but finding a way to put an end to such a conflict later on would be very hard."
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While remaining faithful to the Soviet Union and exercising tight party control, Gomulka instituted modest reforms. Twenty-three years later, Poland made a relatively smooth transition to democracy.
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In Hungary, on the other hand, dissent grew into open rebellion, posing for Moscow a direct and menacing challenge. Khrushchev initially hoped for a Gomulka-type solution. But he lacked confidence in Hungarian leader Imre Nagy, and when the rebellion gained steam and Nagy promised a multiparty democracy, withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, and a Tito-like neutralism, an anxious Kremlin responded with brute force. With Britain and France attacking his new ally Egypt in the concurrent Suez Crisis and Hungary in open revolt, Khrushchev saw his credibility at stake. If the Soviet Union departed Hungary, he exclaimed, the "imperialists" will "perceive it as weakness on our part and will go on the offensive. . . . We have no other choice."
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He dispatched sixty thousand troops and more than one thousand tanks to suppress the rebellion. The streets of Budapest ran red with blood for days. The city was left in rubble. As many as four thousand Hungarians were killed; another two hundred thousand fled to the West. Up to three hundred, Nagy included, were executed.

The reality of liberation posed a painful dilemma for those Americans who had so enthusiastically promoted it. Coming on the eve of the 1956
presidential election and in the midst of the Middle East crisis, Hungary raised especially difficult questions. Once again, the United States was caught by surprise. Although they too profoundly distrusted Nagy, Eisenhower and Dulles hoped for a solution like that in Poland. They carefully avoided provocative steps and even offered public assurances that the United States did not view an independent Hungary as a potential ally. At the same time, RFE broadcasts and the agitation of émigrés working under a CIA program led the rebels to count on U.S. support. Inaction thus created among Hungarians profound disillusionment. Again, however, the United States would do nothing more than seek propaganda gain by highlighting before world opinion Soviet repression. Ike lamented that the United States had "excited" Hungarians and was now "turning our backs on them." Dulles rationalized, rather pathetically, that "we always have been against violent revolution."
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In fact, as far as Hungary was concerned, the policy of liberation was probably counterproductive. By casting doubts on Nagy's ability and loyalty and urging Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, RFE broadcasts may even have contributed to Soviet intervention and probably set back rather than speeded the process of freedom. Painfully aware of the fragility of the Communist bloc, Khrushchev more than ever saw the Cold War in zero-sum terms, ending any plans he may have had for reform in Eastern Europe.
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The bloody denouement in Hungary forced basic changes in U.S. propaganda toward Eastern Europe. Henceforth, the administration shied away from actively encouraging revolt in favor of more subtle forms of subversion through trade, travel, and culture. The aim was to break down the isolation of East Europeans and, by presenting positive images of life in the United States, increase their dissatisfaction with the regimes they lived under. The new approach involved expanded trade through loans and credits, exchange visits by students and professors, and information programs through books and specially designed newspapers and magazines. In Poland, the newly created U.S. Information Agency established an American bookstore and where possible set up libraries and reading rooms. The United States during the 1950s even initiated cultural exchanges with the Soviet Union itself.
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Music and especially jazz became powerful weapons in the new arsenal of liberation. In 1955, Voice of America (VOA) launched a nightly
program, "Music USA," targeted especially at the youth of Eastern Europe and the USSR. Featuring mainly jazz, it was an instant sensation. Its disc jockey Willis Conover became one of the best known and most popular Americans on the Continent. "Music USA" reached an estimated thirty million people in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, a hundred million worldwide. It spawned numerous fan clubs and proved one of the most successful ventures in VOA history. Fighting the Cold War with "cool" music, Conover was said to be more powerful than a fleet of B-29 bombers, "the most famous American that virtually no American ever heard of."
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Even those Americans who condemned the subversive effects of jazz at home welcomed the mischief it might cause abroad. The influence of the U.S. cultural offensive cannot be precisely measured, but over the long term it may have been considerable.
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