Disaster and Détente: The Cold War, Vietnam, and the Third World, 1961–19891
Chapter 31
Disaster and Détente: The Cold War, Vietnam,
and the Third World, 1961–1989
Learning Objectives
After you have studied Chapter 31 in your textbook and worked through this study guide chapter, you should be able to:
1.Examine, evaluate, and discuss the consequences of the defense and foreign policy views, goals, and actions of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
2.Discuss Cuban-American relations from 1959 to October 1962; explain the causes, outcome, and consequences of the Cuban missile crisis, and evaluate President John Kennedy’s handling of the crisis.
3.Examine and evaluate the events and decisions that led to deepening United States involvement in Vietnam from 1961 to 1965.
4.Discuss the nature of the Vietnam War, the characteristics of American soldiers who served in the war, and the war’s impact on those soldiers.
5.Explain the factors that contributed to the emergence of anti-Vietnam War sentiment and protests within the United States.
6.Discuss the course of the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1975; explain the war’s impact on Southeast Asia and American society; and discuss the debate in the United States over the meaning of the American experience in Vietnam.
7.Explain the theories on which the Nixon-Kissinger “grand strategy” was based; examine and evaluate the policies and actions inspired by those theories; and examine the international crises and issues that placed the grand strategy in jeopardy.
8.Examine, evaluate, and discuss the consequences of the defense and foreign policy views, goals, and actions of the Carter administration.
9.Examine, evaluate, and discuss the consequences of the defense and foreign policy views, goals, and actions of the Reagan administration.
10.Discuss the activities that constituted the Iran-contra scandal, and explain the scandal’s impact on the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
Thematic Guide
Chapter 31 continues the survey of the Cold War, begun in Chapter 29, and carries the story from the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to the end of President Reagan’s term in 1989. As can be seen in the discussion of U.S. foreign policy during this period, the containment doctrine, formulated during the Truman administration, continued to be the guiding force behind American foreign policy from the Kennedy administration through the Reagan administration. Furthermore, the action-reaction relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union that was so much a part of the early Cold War persists into the 1961 to 1989 period.
In its quest for friends in the Third World and ultimate victory in the Cold War, the Kennedy administration adopted the goal of nation building, to be accomplished, for example, through the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps as well as through the techniques of counterinsurgency. Such methods perpetuated an idea that had long been part of American foreign policy: that other people cannot solve their own problems and that the American economic and governmental model can be transferred intact to other societies. Historian William Appleman Williams believed that such thinking led to “the tragedy of American diplomacy,” and historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., refers to it as “a ghastly illusion.” The idea is further evidenced in the CIA’s intervention in the Congo (Zaire) from 1960 to 1961 and in Brazil from 1962 to 1964.
Despite the strategic superiority of the United States over the Soviet Union in 1960, President Kennedy’s presidential campaign was based, in part, on the false premise that the Eisenhower administration had allowed a “missile gap” to develop between the United States and its arch-rival. Once elected, President Kennedy oversaw a significant military buildup based on the principle of “flexible response,” and his policies and actions in the field of foreign policy were shaped by his acceptance of the containment doctrine and his preference for a bold, interventionist foreign policy. His activist approach not only helped bring the world to the brink of nuclear disaster in the Cuban missile crisis but also led to a significant acceleration of the nuclear arms race—a trend that continued through the administration of Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.
The authors trace the course of American involvement in Vietnam from deepening U.S. involvement during the Kennedy administration to the collapse of South Vietnam in April 1975. This discussion is based on the thesis that disaster befell the United States in Vietnam because of the U.S. belief that it had a right to influence the internal affairs of Third World countries. This theme runs through the discussion of United States involvement in Vietnam in several variations: the United States decision to sabotage the Geneva accords (see Chapter 29), United States support of the overthrow of the Diem regime, Johnson’s view of Vietnam as a “damn little pissant country,” the arrogance of power on the part of the United States, and Nixon’s “jugular diplomacy.”
Several subthemes remind us of the sources of the Cold War, discussed in Chapter 29. It is within this context that the authors state: “Overlooking the native roots of the nationalist rebellion against France, Washington officials took a globalist view of Vietnam, interpreting events through a Cold War lens.” And in a review of the material we find that the following sources of the Cold War discussed in Chapter 29 fit the war in Vietnam:
1.The unsettled international environment at the end of World War II encouraged competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Empires were disintegrating (France’s attempt to reinstate its authority in Indochina ended in disaster at Dienbienphu); nations were being born (Ho Chi Minh attempted to create an independent Vietnam); and civil wars were raging within nations (the National Liberation Front emerged against Ngo Dinh Diem’s South Vietnamese regime).
2.United States fear of the Soviet system led to economic expansionism (the United States recognized Southeast Asia as an economic asset) and globalist diplomacy (Southeast Asia seemed vital to the defense of Japan and the Philippines).
3.United States officials exaggerated the Soviet threat because of their belief in a monolithic communist enemy bent on world revolution. (American presidents from Truman through Nixon failed to recognize the nationalist roots of the problem in Vietnam. Instead, they saw Ho Chi Minh as a Communist and Vietnam as an “Asian Berlin,” and they accepted the tenets of the domino theory.)
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Americans began to debate its causes and consequences. Just as they had disagreed over the course and conduct of the war, they were now unable to reach any real consensus on its lessons for the nation.
Although a great deal of energy was expended on questions relating to the Vietnam War during Richard M. Nixon’s presidency, Nixon considered other foreign policy matters, especially the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, to be more important. In an attempt to create a global balance of power, Nixon and Henry Kissinger (Nixon’s national security adviser and later his secretary of state) adopted a “grand strategy.” By means of détente with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, Nixon and Kissinger sought to achieve the same goals as those of the old containment doctrine, but through accommodation rather than confrontation. Despite détente, the United States still had to respond to crises rooted in instability. Nowhere was the fragility of world stability via the grand strategy more apparent than in the Middle East, where war again broke out between the Arab states and Israel in 1973. While the Soviet Union and the United States positioned themselves by putting their armed forces on alert, OPEC imposed an oil embargo against the United States. Kissinger was able to persuade the warring parties to agree to a cease-fire; OPEC ended its embargo; and, through “shuttle diplomacy,” Kissinger persuaded Egypt and Israel to agree to a United Nations peacekeeping force in the Sinai. But many problems remained, and the instability of the region continued to be a source of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.
President Nixon believed, just as previous presidents had believed, in America’s right to influence the internal affairs of Third World countries. It was out of this belief and the concomitant belief that the United States should curb revolution and radicalism in the Third World, that Nixon accepted the Johnson Doctrine in Latin America, as evidenced by the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile.
As Nixon and Kissinger sought world order through the grand strategy, global economic issues highlighted the differences between the rich and poor nations of the world and heightened the animosity of Third World nations toward what they perceived to be the exploitive industrialized nations of the world. The United States, the richest nation on Earth, exports large quantities of goods to developing nations as well as importing raw materials from those nations. This important trade, along with America’s worldwide investments, in part explains the interventionist nature of United States foreign policy, a policy accepted and continued by Presidents Nixon and Gerald Ford, and by their foreign-policy overseer, Henry Kissinger. Therefore, during the Nixon-Ford-Kissinger years America’s global watch against forces that threatened its far-flung economic and strategic interests continued.
When Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency in 1977, he and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance at first pledged a new course for the United States. However, this course was challenged by Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, by Democratic and Republican critics, and by the Soviet Union, which reacted in anger and fear to the human rights aspect of Carter’s policies. The Cold War seemed to have its own momentum. Despite the Carter administration’s successful negotiation of the SALT-II treaty and its achievements in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, it was overwhelmed by critics at home, the Iranian hostage crisis, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The grain embargo, the 1980 Olympics boycott, and the Carter Doctrine all seemed more reminiscent of the containment doctrine and the sources of the Cold War than of a new course in American foreign policy. Furthermore, the excesses in which the United States had engaged in the past in its attempts to create stability, protect American economic interests, and contain the Communist threat rained down on the Carter administration in the form of the Iranian hostage crisis. In this crisis America’s missiles, submarines, tanks, and bombers ultimately meant nothing if the lives of the hostages were to be saved. But many Americans wished for a return to the immediate postwar world, a world in which the United States had a monopoly on economic and military power. In this spirit of nostalgia, the electorate chose Ronald Reagan as its president in the 1980 election.
Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 marked a return to foreign-policy themes rooted in America’s past and reminiscent of the early days of the Cold War. As a result, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorated and arms talks between the two nations broke down. The questioning of U.S. intervention in Third World nations, so apparent in the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam disaster, was absent in the Reagan administration. Fearing communism, Reagan simplistically blamed unrest in the world on the Soviets, failed to see the local roots of problems, and formed alliances with antirevolutionary regimes, which tended to be unrepresentative. American relations with the Third World during the 1980s evoke memories of the sources of the Cold War, of the containment policy, and of attempts to protect American economic interests against the force of revolutionary nationalism. Therefore, in the name of protecting private American companies, the Reagan administration rejected the Law of the Sea Treaty. In the same vein, American policies toward El Salvador and Nicaragua recall phrases used to describe American policy in previous eras; and Reagan’s desire for victory rather than negotiation, seen especially in his policies toward Central America, brings to mind the early years of the Kennedy administration. However, since the Kennedy years the American people had been through the traumas of Vietnam and Watergate, and the power of Congress, relative to that of the president, had increased. Therefore, Congress in the mid-1980s was much more willing to play an active role in foreign policy decisions than it had been in the 1960s. But Congress, reflecting the debate among the American people over the nation’s policy toward Nicaragua, vacillated between ending aid to the contras in mid-1984 and again extending aid in 1986. During the period when aid was prohibited, the executive branch of the government, through the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency, acted to circumvent the will of Congress. These actions came to light in 1986 in the Iran-contra scandal, a scandal that deeply wounded Ronald Reagan’s ability to lead during his last two years in office.
From this discussion of the Iran-contra scandal, the authors turn their attention to continuing problems in the Middle East, the problem of terrorism against United States citizens and property, America’s ill-fated 1983 mission in Lebanon, and to a discussion of Congress’s ability to force the Reagan administration to alter its policy of “constructive engagement” toward South Africa. At the close of the 1980s major problems continued to face the United States in the Third World.
Public concern over the Reagan administration’s anti-Soviet stance and propensity toward confrontation led to international concern and to massive support for a freeze in the nuclear arms race. Public pressure, combined with other forces, led to a resumption of arms talks in 1985. In the same year Mikhail Gorbachev assumed power in the Soviet Union. Perhaps President Reagan was right when he said that he was “dropped into a grand historical moment,” because under Gorbachev’s leadership the Soviet Union undertook an ambitious domestic reform program and Soviet foreign policy underwent significant changes. These dramatic changes helped reduce international tensions and, in 1987, led to a Soviet-American agreement to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe.
Building Vocabulary
Listed below are important words and terms that you need to know to get the most out of Chapter 31. They are listed in the order in which they occur in the chapter. After carefully looking through the list, refer to a dictionary and jot down the definition of words that you do not know or of which you are unsure.
imbue
protracted
acrimonious
diffuse
quell
exemplary
bipolar
ardent
disparaging
reprisal
attrition
volatile
aghast
vengeful
quash
venerable
inordinate
reproach
tenacious
languish
malevolent
strident
Identification and Significance
After studying Chapter 31 of A People and a Nation, you should be able to identify fully and explain the historical significance of each item listed below.
1.Identify each item in the space provided. Give an explanation or description of the item. Answer the questions who, what, where, and when.
2.Explain the historical significance of each item in the space provided. Establish the historical context in which the item exists. Establish the item as the result of or as the cause of other factors existing in the society under study. Answer this question: What were the political, social, economic, and/or cultural consequences of this item?
John F. Kennedy
Identification
Significance
the concept of nation building
Identification
Significance
the Alliance for Progress
Identification
Significance
the Peace Corps
Identification
Significance
the doctrine of counterinsurgency
Identification
Significance
Patrice Lumumba and João Goulart
Identification
Significance
the principle of flexible response
Identification
Significance
the 1961 Berlin crisis
Identification
Significance
the Bay of Pigs invasion
Identification
Significance
Operation Mongoose
Identification
Significance
the Cuban missile crisis
Identification
Significance
the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons
Identification
Significance
Project Beef-up
Identification
Significance
the Strategic Hamlet Program
Identification
Significance
the Tonkin Gulf incident and the Tonkin Gulf Resolution
Identification
Significance
Johnson’s bombing campaign in Laos
Identification
Significance
Operation Rolling Thunder
Identification
Significance
the My Lai massacre
Identification
Significance
draft resisters
Identification
Significance
the Tet offensive
Identification
Significance
the Nixon Doctrine
Identification
Significance
Vietnamization
Identification
Significance
the invasion of Cambodia
Identification
Significance
the Pentagon Papers
Identification
Significance
the Christmas bombing
Identification
Significance
the Vietnam cease-fire agreement
Identification
Significance
the “boat people”
Identification
Significance
Vietnam syndrome
Identification
Significance
post-traumatic stress disorder
Identification
Significance
Henry A. Kissinger
Identification
Significance
the Nixon-Kissinger grand strategy
Identification
Significance
détente
Identification
Significance
the SALT-I agreements
Identification
Significance
MIRVs
Identification
Significance
Nixon’s China trip
Identification
Significance