Transcript The Start of the Cold War

The Start of the Cold War
NEW RULES: THE COLD WAR

Two actors (bipolarity, no longer a multipolar
world)
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Basis of Conflict Now Different: Ideology

New nature of global conflict (i.e., a new game).
Whoever occupies a territory also imposes
on it his own social system
(Stalin as quoted on Smith, 118).
NEW RULES: THE COLD WAR


The game becomes zero-sum (for the most
part): “Each side strove mightily to establish
military superiority over the other, yet there
existed no plausible change of military victory”
(Smith, 121).
Not empires, but more large spheres of
influence

Worldwide in scope

Not within a subsystem

Proxy warfare
Truman Doctrine


(PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRUMAN'S
ADDRESS BEFORE A JOINT SESSION OF
CONGRESS, MARCH 12, 1947):
“One of the primary objectives of the foreign
policy of the United States is the creation of
conditions in which we and other nations will be
able to work out a way of life free from coercion.
This was a fundamental issue in the war with
Germany and Japan. Our victory was won over
countries which sought to impose their will, and
their way of life, upon other nations.”
Truman Doctrine

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I believe that it must be the policy of the United
States to support free peoples who are resisting
attempted subjugation by armed minorities or
by outside pressures.
I believe that we must assist free peoples to
work out their own destinies in their own way.
Early Reactions to the Cold War
in the Hemisphere


US was already increasingly viewing the region
through a security lens.
Rio Treaty (Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal
Assistance) of 1947

The OAS

US Mutual Security Act of 1952
More Truman Admin
 By the end of the Truman administration:
Increased Military assistance to Latin America (1951, $38.2
million in direct military assistance, $51.7 million un 1952—
Smith, 126).
More Truman Admin
 Kennan recommended three major foreign policy goals:
1. The protection of our raw materials.
2. The prevention of military exploitation of Latin America by
the enemy.
3. The prevention of the psychological mobilization of Latin
America against us.
Everybody Likes Ike! (Right?)

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Heading into the Eisenhower administration: Ike criticized the
Truman administration for neglecting Latin America in the
campaign, but once in office adoption similar policies
The View from the South:
“We are puzzled and dismayed by the fact that while the
nations that suffered most of the impact of the [Second World]
War, have been entirely rebuilt and even exceeded the levels
enjoyed before the conflict, other nations are suffering a decline
in their public and private revenues” (Oswald Aranha, Brazil’s
wartime foreign minister as quoted in Raymont, 92).
More Eisenhower

SecState John Foster Dulles:
“Do nothing to offend the dictators, they are the only people we
can depend on” (John Foster Dulles, SecState for Ike, as
quoted on Smith 131).

“stop coddling the Latins” – Dulles to the State
Department Staff (Raymont, 93).
More Eisenhower

State Department official Louis Halle:
“Communist infection is not going to spread to
the U.S. But if it should in the fullness of time
spread over much of Latin America it would
impair the military security of the Hemisphere
and thus of the U.S.” (Weeks 2008:107).

Domino Theory

Guatemala
Eisenhower
 The view from the South:
“As you know, reaction throughout Latin America has been bad.
Intervention is considered a worse evil than communism,
especially since intervention is never applied to foster a
democratic cause” (Costa Rican President José Figueres to Adolf
A. Berle, a former adviser to FDR, as quoted in Smith, 142).
VP Nixon Goes South
On May 13, 1958, it may have seemed to many people that Latin Americans just did not
like the United States anymore. That afternoon, Vice President Richard Nixon, while on a
good will mission to South America, headed a motorcade into Caracas, Venezuela’s
capital. When the cars slowed down, onlookers rushed to gather around them. For
twelve minutes, the crowd rocked the vehicles, bashed them with sticks and iron
bars, spat on the windows, and shouted at the passengers. The U.S. delegates and
their Venezuelan escorts feared for their lives, and barely escaped. The incident brought a
climax to protests that marred every stop on Nixon’s itinerary. Whatever else this was,
most witnesses agreed, it was anti-Americanism--unbridled hostility toward "the United
States." Costa Rican president José Figueres, like others, tried to define the problem
narrowly: "People cannot spit on a foreign policy which is what they meant to do."
Others feared a tide of revolution. As one aide told Secretary of State John Foster Dulles,
"The preponderance of U.S. influence in Latin America is being challenged." Among
shaken U.S. diplomats, the general consensus was at least that "real violence"
against U.S. representatives was "something new," a qualitative leap in boldness
stemming from resentment against nearly every aspect of U.S. influence in Latin
America.
Source: Alan McPherson, Yankee No! Anti-Americanism in U.S.-Latin American Relations
8/26/09
8/26/09