The American people, troubled and uncertain over the stalemate in Korea, counted on Eisenhower to find a way to employ the nation’s immense strength constructively. The new president shared the general feeling that a change of tactics in foreign affairs was needed. He counted on his secretary of state to solve the practical problems.
His choice, John Foster Dulles, was a lawyer with considerable diplomatic experience. He had been an outspoken critic of Truman’s policy of containment. In a May 1952 article in Life entitled “A Policy of Boldness,” he argued that global military containment was both expensive and ineffective: “We cannot build a 20,000-mile Maginot Line or match the Red armies man for man, gun for gun, and tank for tank at any particular time or place their general staff selects.” Instead of waiting for the communist powers to make a move and then “containing” them, the United States would build so many powerful nuclear weapons that the Soviet Union or communist China wouldn’t dare take provocative actions. An immense arsenal of nuclear bombs, loaded on the nation’s formidable fleet of bombers, would ensure a massive retaliation against any aggressor. Such a “new look” military would be cheaper to maintain than a large standing army, and it would prevent the United States from being caught up in “local” conflicts like the Korean War.
Korea offered the first test of his views. After Eisenhower’s post-election trip to Korea failed to bring an end to the war, Dulles signaled his willingness to use tactical nuclear weapons in Korea by showily transferring nuclear warheads from the United States mainland to bomber units stationed in East Asia. He also issued a calculatedly vague warning about tough new measures. Several weeks later, in July 1953, the Chinese signed an armistice that ended hostilities but left Korea divided. The administration interpreted the
An eleven-megaton hyrdrogen bomb is detonated over Bikini Atoll in March 1954. One megaton had the explosive power of 1 million tons of TNT. (The bomb that had destroyed Hiroshima had the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT.) An earlier atom bomb test at Bikini Island prompted a French fashion designer to give the name "bikini” to his explosively provocative bathing suit.
Softening of the Chinese position as proof that the nuclear threat had worked. (Dulles was apparently mistaken about the effectiveness of his nuclear threat. In recent years, Chinese officials have said that they were unaware that Eisenhower and Dulles were considering use of nuclear bombs to end the Korean War.)
Emboldened by his apparent triumph, Dulles again brandished the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Chiang Kai-shek had stationed 90,000 soldiers—one-third of his army—in Quemoy and Matsu, two small islands located a few miles from mainland China. In 1954 the Chinese communists began shelling the islands, presumably in preparation to invade them. Chiang appealed for American protection, warning that loss of the islands would bring about the collapse of Nationalist China. Dulles concurred that the consequences throughout East Asia would be “catastrophic.” At a press conference in 1955 Eisenhower announced his willingness to use nuclear weapons to defend the islands, “just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else.” The Chinese communists backed down.
Massive retaliation succeeded in reducing the defense budget by allowing Eisenhower to pare a half million men from the armed forces. On balance, however, Dulles’s strategy was flawed, and many of his schemes were preposterous. Above all, massive retaliation was an extremely dangerous policy when the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons as powerful as those of the United States.
World History
