The Suez Crisis
In an odd twist, Eisenhower actually supported the Communist-leaning
Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser during the 1956Suez
crisis. Hoping to construct a new dam on the Nile River to
provide electricity and additional land for farming, the Nationalist Nasser
approached British and American officials with requests for economic
assistance. When the negotiations collapsed, Nasser turned to the
Soviet Union for help and then seized the British-controlled Suez
Canal, which linked the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. Great Britain
and France asked Eisenhower for military assistance to retake the
canal, but Eisenhower refused, forcing the two powers to join with Israel in 1956 to
retake the canal themselves. Eisenhower condemned the attack on
Egypt and exerted heavy diplomatic and economic pressure on the
aggressors. Unable to sustain the action in the face of U.S. disapproval
and financial pressures, Great Britain and France withdrew.
The Eisenhower Doctrine
In 1957,
in order to protect American oil interests in the Middle East, Eisenhower
announced the Eisenhower Doctrine, which stated that
the United States would provide military and economic assistance
to Middle Eastern countries in resisting Communist insurgents. Although
not terribly significant, this doctrine, as well as the restoration
of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi in Iran, demonstrated the growing
importance of oil in American foreign policy decision making.
Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam
A growing crisis in French Indochina proved
to be no less challenging for Eisenhower than the Suez crisis. Ever
since World War I, Vietnamese nationalists under the leadership
of Ho Chi Minh had sought independence from France,
the colonial power in the region. Although originally more nationalist
and anticolonial than Communist, Ho turned to the Soviet Union in
the 1950s
after U.S. officials had rebuffed his earlier requests for help
in securing independence. The USSR supplied money and arms to the
Vietminh forces, putting Eisenhower in the difficult position of
supporting a French colonial possession in order to contain the
USSR.
Dien Bien Phu
When the key French garrison at Dien Bien Phu fell
to Ho Chi Minh’s troops in 1954,
Eisenhower promised to assist the French economically. Many U.S.
foreign policy thinkers feared that if one Southeast Asian country
fell to Communism, all the others would fall as well, just like
a row of dominoes. This so-called domino theory prompted
Secretary of State Dulles and Vice President Nixon to advocate the
use of nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese. Remembering
the fruitless war in Korea, however, Eisenhower merely responded,
“I can conceive of no greater tragedy than for the United States
to become engaged in all-out war in Indochina.” Nevertheless, Eisenhower’s
financial commitment to contain Communism in Vietnam after the fall
of Dien Bien Phu laid the groundwork for what eventually devolved
into the Vietnam War.
The 17th Parallel
An international convention in Geneva, Switzerland, tried
to avert further conflict in Vietnam by temporarily splitting the
country into two countries, with the dividing line at the 17th
parallel. Ho Chi Minh erected his own government in Hanoi in
North Vietnam, while American-supported Ngo Dinh Diem founded
a South Vietnamese government in Saigon. This Geneva
Conference agreement stipulated that the division would be
only temporary, a stopgap to maintain peace until national elections
could be held to reunite the country democratically.
Although the USSR consented to the agreement,
Eisenhower rejected it. Instead, he pledged continued economic support
to Ngo Dinh Diem and convinced Great Britain, France, Australia, and
other regional nations to join the mostly symbolic Southeast Asia
Treaty Organization (SEATO), modeled after the highly successful
NATO.
