05-12-2012, 01:06 AM
Jim DiEugenio Wrote:David:
You are forgetting an important step in Eisenhower's career. Between the military and his presidency he was president of Columbia University in NYC for about five years. That is key:
Eisenhower's stint as president of Columbia University was punctuated by his activity within the Council on Foreign Relations, a study group he led as president concerning the political and military implications of the Marshall Plan, and The American Assembly, Eisenhower's "vision of a great cultural center where business, professional and governmental leaders could meet from time to time to discuss and reach conclusions concerning problems of a social and political nature". Biographer Blanche Weisen Cook suggests that this period served as "the political education of General Eisenhower", as he had to prioritize wide-ranging educational, administrative, and financial demands for the university. Through his involvement in the Council on Foreign Relations, he also gained exposure to economic analysis, which would become the bedrock of his understanding in economic policy. "Whatever General Eisenhower knows about economics he has learned at the study group meetings," one Aid to Europe member claimed.
The contacts gained through university and American Assembly fund-raising activities would later become important supporters in Eisenhower's bid for the Republican party nomination and the presidency. Meanwhile, Columbia University's liberal faculty members became disenchanted with the university president's ties to oilmen and businessmen, including Leonard McCollum, president of Continental Oil; Frank Abrams, chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey; Bob Kleberg, president of King Ranch; H. J. Porter, a Texas oil producer; Bob Woodruff, president of Coca-Cola; and Clarence Francis, General Foods chairman. As Columbia's president, Eisenhower gave voice and form to his opinions about the supremacy and difficulties of American democracy. His tenure marked his transformation from military to civilian leadership. The biographer Travis Beal Jacobs also suggests that the alienation of the Columbia faculty contributed to sharp intellectual criticism of him for many years.
Thanks.... I was not aware of this, did I miss this in your book? ....very illuminating
Wouldn't this give even greater merit the the CFR being behind Dulles' appointment? His brother was CFR, yes?
Finally Jim... As I read about the domino theory... I recall the time I spent researching the origins of the Cold war... why did it happen that way... and repeatedly my trail led to the work of George Kennan... Without the works of Kennan, does Acheson come to the conclusions he does...
in fact I was awlays under the impression it was GK who initiated these US feelings... it's just that Kennan is not even mentioned, nor indexed....
Is this such general knowledge as to not be needed in a discussion of containment and the domino theory post WWII?
I'm simply making an observation about something I had studied and felt is important in understanding the history of the Cold War... without Kennan's interpretation of the situation who knows....
I'm on chapter 3 btw... the book is wonderful... I'll need to read it once for FEEL and again for DETAIL... excellent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_theory
Following the Iran crisis of 1946, Harry Truman declared what became known as the Truman Doctrine in 1947, promising to contribute financial aid to Greece and Turkey following World War II, in the hope that this would impede the advancement of Communism into Western Europe. Later that year, diplomat George Kennan wrote an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that became known as the "X Article", which first articulated the policy of containment, arguing that the further spread of Communism to countries outside a "buffer zone" around the USSR, even if it happened via democratic elections, was unacceptable and a threat to U.S. national security. Kennan was also involved, along with others in the Truman administration, in creating the Marshall Plan, which also began in 1947, to give aid to the countries of Western Europe (along with Greece and Turkey), in large part with the hope of keeping them from falling under Soviet domination
The Sources of Soviet Conduct George Kennan 1948
Part I
The political personality of Soviet power as we know it today is the product of ideology and circumstances: ideology inherited by the present Soviet leaders from the movement in which they had their political origin, and circumstances of the power which they now have exercised for nearly three decades in Russia. There can be few tasks of psychological analysis more difficult than to try to trace the interaction of these two forces and the relative role of each in the determination of official Soviet conduct yet the attempt must be made if that conduct is to be understood and effectively countered.
It is difficult to summarize the set of ideological concepts with which the Soviet leaders came into power. Marxian ideology, in its Russian-Communist projection, has always been in process of subtle evolution. The materials on which it bases itself are extensive and complex. But the outstanding features of Communist thought as it existed in 1916 may perhaps be summarized as follows:
(a) that the central factor in the life of man, the factor which determines the character of public life and the "physiognomy of society," is the system by which material goods are produced and exchanged;
(b) that the capitalist system of production is a nefarious one which inevitable leads to the exploitation of the working class by the capital-owning class and is incapable of developing adequately the economic resources of society or of distributing fairly the material good produced by human labor;
© that capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction and must, in view of the inability of the capital-owning class to adjust itself to economic change, result eventually and inescapably in a revolutionary transfer of power to the working class; and
(d) that imperialism, the final phase of capitalism, leads directly to war and revolution.
The rest may be outlined in Lenin's own words: "Unevenness of economic and political development is the inflexible law of capitalism. It follows from this that the victory of Socialism may come originally in a few capitalist countries or even in a single capitalist country. The victorious proletariat of that country, having expropriated the capitalists and having organized Socialist production at home, would rise against the remaining capitalist world, drawing to itself in the process the oppressed classes of other countries." It must be noted that there was no assumption that capitalism would perish without proletarian revolution. A final push was needed from a revolutionary proletariat movement in order to tip over the tottering structure. But it was regarded as inevitable that sooner of later that push be given.
In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet
Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies
.....
Part III
In the light of the above, it will be clearlyseen that the Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the westernworld is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant applicationof counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and politicalpoints, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy, but whichcannot be charmed or talked out of existence. The Russians look forward to aduel of infinite duration, and they see that already they have scored greatsuccesses. It must be borne in mind that there was a time when the CommunistParty represented far more of a minority in the sphere of Russian national lifethan Soviet power today represents in the world community.