Presidental Foreign Policy in the Cold War

Once this policy was in effect, it had a life of its own, and no leader of the U.S. had the courage or wisdom or political independence to try to alter that policy in any significant way. From Truman through Johnson, at the very least, Presidents followed a policy which erroneously and disastrously assumed that all political and economic reform movements in Third World nations were not indigenous but were inspired instead by the evil Communist leaders of the Soviet Union. This philosophy of fear, hatred and ignorance was at the heart of the containment policy of the U.S.

It is not surprising, after World War II and the division of Europe into West and East, that Truman adopted George Kennan's containment policy. The Cold War, with all its paranoia and military build-ups, seems in retrospect almost inevitable in the wake of the horrors of World War II. It seems reasonable that some aggressive policy toward the pe

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whether he would have altered U.S. policy, though his test-ban treaty with the Soviets, his denunciation of the CIA after the Bay of Pigs disaster, and his plan to withdraw from Vietnam indicate at least a willingness to consider more flexibility in that policy. With his assassination (a result, in part, of just that flexibility?) and the ascension of Lyndon Johnson, strict Cold War ideology was re-established, with the Vietnam War its major consequence: That Johnson . . . shared the world view of almost every other policymaker . . . seems . . . clear: that appeasement did not pay; that America's primary interest lay in containing the expansionist aspirations of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (Martel 132). 3. American foreign policy is indeed often more a response to past events than to current situations. However, it is somewhat misleading to state that this policy is most characteristically manifested in the efforts of American policy makers to correct past mistakes. In fact, it is the failure of American policy makers to even acknowledge past mistakes, much less try to correct them, that is the basis of much if not most of failed U.S. policy abroad. Astonishingly, for example, we have the spectacle o
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Approximate Word count = 1580
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)