Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Prologue: Preparing for the Presidency -- PART 1 MACRO-LEVEL ECONOMIC POLICIES -- 1 Setting a Consistent Course, 1953-1956 -- 2 Economic Policy in Good Times, 1955-1957 -- 3 Narrowing the Course, 1957-1961 -- PART 2 MICROECONOMIC POLICIES -- 4 Agriculture: A Tough Battle -- 5 A Coalescing Antitrust Policy -- 6 Foreign Economic Policy -- Epilogue: The Eisenhower Legacy -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Essay on Primary Sources -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y.

The US in the 1950s and 1960s wanted to prevent a new communist regime in the Western hemisphere at any cost. Under President Eisenhower the US pursued a policy of support for dictators, the economic shoring up of regimes that impoverished their own people and sanctioned direct interventions such as the overthrow of the Guatemalan government in 1954. When John F. Kennedy came to power, he promised a reset of relations and set about pouring aid into Latin America. Yet in 1961 Kennedy also attempted to intervene in Central American domestic politics with the Bay of Pigs operation. How far was each of the approaches pursued by the two administrations responsible for increasing tensions and encouraging radicalism on the continent? In answering this question Bevan Sewell shows how Eisenhower's strategic stance on the Cold War became increasingly detrimental to Latin America over time, and shows how similar policies were continued by the Kennedy administration. The US and Latin America provides a new lens through which to assess US policy towards Latin America at an important time in inter-American relations.

Originally published in 1982. Trade and Aid outlines the transition of U.S. foreign policy during the Eisenhower administration. In the years leading up to Eisenhower's election, America's predominant foreign economic program was based on the concept of "trade not aid," which deemphasized foreign aid and relied instead on liberalized world trade and the encouragement of private foreign investment to assure world economic growth. When Eisenhower took office in 1953, he embraced this doctrine. However, as problems in the Third World worsened, it became clear to Eisenhower and other architects of American foreign policy that trade and private investment were insufficient solutions to the economic woes of developing nations. In 1954 Eisenhower began to embrace economic aid as a core axis of his foreign economic policy. Burton I. Kaufman contextualizes Eisenhower's foreign policy leadership in the ongoing historical evaluation of Eisenhower's leadership prowess. He evaluates the outcomes of the Eisenhower administration's trade and aid program, arguing that developing countries were worse off by the time Eisenhower left office.

Waging Peace offers the first fully comprehensive study of Eisenhower's "New Look" program of national security, which provided the groundwork for the next three decades of America's Cold War strategy. Though the Cold War itself and the idea of containment originated under Truman, it was left to Eisenhower to develop the first coherent and sustainable strategy for addressing the issues unique to the nuclear age. To this end, he designated a decision-making system centered around the National Security Council to take full advantage of the expertise and data from various departments and agencies and of the judgment of his principal advisors. The result was the formation of a "long haul" strategy of preventing war and Soviet expansion and of mitigating Soviet hostility. Only now, in the aftermath of the Cold War, can Eisenhower's achievement be fully appreciated. This book will be of much interest to scholars and students of the Eisenhower era, diplomatic history, the Cold War, and contemporary foreign policy.

As the United States struggled to respond to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik in 1957, President Eisenhower received a top secret report prepared by a committee of leading scientific, business, and military experts. The panel, called the Gaither Committee in recognition of its first chair, H. Rowan Gaither Jr., emphasized the inadequacy of U.S. defense measures designed to protect the civilian population and the vulnerability of the country's strategic nuclear forces in the event of a Soviet attack. The committee concluded that in the event of a surprise Soviet attack, the United States would not be able to defend itself. The years following Sputnik and the Gaither Committee's report were a watershed period in America's cold war history. During the remaining years of the Eisenhower administration, the intensification of the cold war caused the acceleration of an arms race that dramatically raised the stakes of any potential conflict. The Gaither Committee was at the center of debates about U.S. national security and U.S.-Soviet relations. The committee's recommendations led to increases in defense spending and the development of our nuclear arsenal.

Since the end of the Second World War, economic assistance has turned into the extremely important instrument of regulating international relations. However, the significance of foreign aid becomes even greater for the periods of restructuring the system of international economic relations, when it is necessary to overcome nationalistic barriers in order to influence the character and direction of recipients' economic development. At the times of serious international political and military crises, foreign aid can change its destination from economic development to security goals. During Eisenhower's presidency the struggle between these two tendencies, which were formulated in the so-called 'development assistance' and 'mutual security' doctrines, was waged particularly aggressively and uncompromisingly, since the control over foreign aid allowed any party to direct, to a considerable degree, the entire world order building process.

In the US, the Cold War is often remembered as a two-power struggle. The Eisenhower administration placed an extremely high priority on victory in the Third World. This book assesses the impact of the globalizing Cold War and the process of decolonization on the Eisenhower administration's foreign policy. It is intended for diplomatic historians.