Saki Dockrill

Aspirations for Atomic Peace

The president continued to seek a balance between United States national security requirements and its healthy economy. US national security policy was also closely concerned with America’s cold war policy and its foreign policy in general. It would have been, of course, easier for Eisenhower to consummate the New Look if he had had strong and united support from the Republican party. Eisenhower’s relationship with the Republican Old Guard was a difficult one. He described the majority leader, Senator Knowland (who had succeeded senator Taft in July 1953) as ‘cumbersome’, a man who did not have ‘the sharp mind and the great experience that Taft did’. Despite their differences over foreign policy and national security issues, Eisenhower admired Taft for his loyalty to the Republican party and for his leadership ability in Congress.1 By contrast, the president was impatient with Knowland’s extremist views — the Californian senator once compared the defence of Dien Bien Phu to the defence of ‘the Alamo and also Bataan and Corregidor’. Eisenhower regarded the senator’s demand for a US naval ‘blockade’ off the coast of mainland China (during the first offshore crisis), or for a total trade embargo of Communist China, as ‘self-defeating’ or ‘impossibly stupid’.2

Collective Security in Western Europe

The Republican administration followed its Democrat predecessor in adopting a Europe-first strategy. As Rosenberg, Wampler and Trachtenberg argue, there was strong continuity in American strategy for the defence of western Europe between the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.1 Both considered the presence of combat forces in western Europe and Germany as essential in order to resist the Soviet military threat, despite the increasing availability of nuclear weapons during that period. The difference was perhaps a matter of emphasis, with the Eisenhower administration placing more reliance on nuclear weapons, in an effort to compensate for the inability and unwillingness of America’s NATO allies in Europe to provide sufficient troops. This comprised part of what Gaddis termed the ‘asymmetrical response’ to the nature of the Communist threat. More importantly, it was the Eisenhower administration that first raised the question of who should provide troops for NATO.

The Road to NSC 162/2

Despite Eisenhower’s victory in the presidential election of 1952, the 83rd Congress was only marginally controlled by the Republicans. During his first year as president, Eisenhower was more frustrated by the activities of Republican legislators than by the Democrats — for instance, Senator John Bricker’s amendment designed to reduce presidential authority over foreign affairs and the intrusion of Senator Joseph MacCarthy of Wisconsin (the chairman of the Senate sub-committee on government operations) into internal security matters.1

The Challenge in Asia and Europe

Washington’s anxiety to re-deploy US troops in Europe and to introduce nuclear weapons there were the two main pillars of the New Look in Europe. However, the administration clearly underestimated the importance of the American military presence to their European allies. Moreover, NATO’s agreement to the concept of the ‘long haul’ and to the commitment of ‘new approach studies’ by SACEUR in December 1953 did not signify its unreserved approval of the US approach to nuclear weapons. This soon became clear when the United States enunciated its massive retaliation strategy in January 1954. Trachtenberg summarises the way in which the United States tried to apply the New Look in Europe: ‘You want forward defense? Then come up with the troops. But if you can’t, then don’t complain if we end up relying on nuclear weapons’.1

The ‘New Look’ in Nuclear Deterrence Strategy

The basic mechanism of deterrence is psychological, that is the threat that ‘creates’ in an opponent ‘fear, anxiety, doubt’ — ‘although you can hurt us terribly, if you do we will pay you back by hurting you worse.’1 Deterrence was by no means a new concept to postwar American policy makers and strategists. Franklin Roosevelt told his close advisers at a White House meeting on 14 November 1938 that the expansion of American air power would deter Hitler and Japan. The president was well aware of the advantages of utilising the concept of deterrence as a means of furthering his foreign policy goals.2 Similarly, the United States Army Air Department spelled out the strategic role of air power on 15 September 1939: ‘the only reasonable hope of avoiding air attack is in the possession of such power of retaliation as to deter an enemy from initiating air warfare.’3

Eisenhower’s Final Struggles: Deterrence, Negotiations, and Defence Budgeting

The Republicans suffered serious losses in the 1958 mid term Congressional election and as a result Eisenhower faced a Democratic-controlled Congress for the third time in a row.1 He now had only two years left to defend his New Look. Nelson Rockefeller, now governor of New York, became the Republican representative of the anti-New Look faction, which provided Democrats like senators Stewart Symington, Lyndon Johnson, and John F. Kennedy with welcome allies in their campaign against the ‘missile gap’. Kennedy called for ‘the need for a new approach’ to the national defence, which in Henry Kissinger’s words, was suffering from ‘a Maginot-line mentality’, that is, ‘dependence upon a strategy which may collapse or may never be used’.2

The Indirect Approach and Liberation

The Eisenhower administration had been searching since 1953 for a more flexible foreign and national security policy in order to cope with the realities of a post-Stalin Soviet Union, which was constantly asserting its genuine commitment to world peace. Accordingly, while the structure of American armed forces was being transformed in response to the New Look doctrine, the New Look itself had been subjected to a number of compromises. These included the postponement of any drastic American troop reductions in Europe, a more circumspect approach towards collective security, a de-emphasis on ‘massive retaliation’ rhetoric, given the greater availability of tactical nuclear weapons, and a less forceful posture towards the Soviet-Communist bloc as a result of the growing realisation of the futility of, and dangers inherent in, general nuclear war. The latter culminated in the massive publicity surrounding the Geneva summit conference whereby the United States was extolled as a peace-loving country.1

Realities Behind the New Look: Sputnik and After

On 4 October 1957, the news that the Soviet Union had successfully launched the world’s first earth satellite, Sputnik I weighing 184 pounds, took the world by surprise. Pravda boasted that Sputnik was the result of ‘the high level of scientific and technical thought in our country’.1 Subsequently, on 2 November, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik II, a much larger satellite, weighing 1100 pounds, which contained a dog called Liska. On 6 December 1957, the American navy’s 3.12 1b Vanguard rocket exploded, in front of the TV cameras, two seconds after take-off. These developments severely shook American confidence in their technological superiority. Indeed, public opinion became almost hysterical about the Soviet achievements, while the US press described the failed Vanguard as ‘Puffnik, Flopnik; Kaputnik or Stayputnik’.2 The American intelligence community had suspected for some months that the Soviets possessed ‘the capability of initiating ICBM flight testing’, and Sputnik did not surprise the president? However, it did force him to adopt a number of measures which he believed essential if the confidence of the American public and America’s allies in American scientific prowess was to be restored.4

From Truman to Eisenhower

In July 1945, US intelligence (G2) described the Soviet Union as having ‘a naked lust for world conquest’, while even earlier, Henry Stimson, the secretary of war (who was initially optimistic about Soviet intentions), the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William D. Leahy, the secretary of the navy, James V. Forrestal, and Averell Harriman, the ambassador to Moscow, had assumed either an anti-Soviet posture or had become extremely suspicious of Soviet intentions.1 Their hard-line views did not carry much weight in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Stalin was one of the most popular figures along with Winston S. Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek in American opinion polls between 1942 and 1945, and even in September 1945, more than half the US populace believed that the Soviet Union could be trusted to cooperate with the United States in the postwar world.2

Facing the Nuclear Equation

Despite Eisenhower’s overwhelming victory in the presidential election in November 1956, the Democrats continued to dominate Congress. Then, during his second term, the president lost key officials who had helped to formulate or had supported his New Look doctrine.1 Gruenther’s decision to retire at the end of November 1956 was in Eisenhower’s words ‘a shocker’.2 Humphrey, who Eisenhower had described as ‘mentally qualified for the Presidency’, resigned in May 1957,3 followed by Wilson, who resigned after the Sputnik shock in October 1957. Despite all his shortcomings Wilson had pressed forward with reductions in defence expenditures to meet the requirements of the New Look. Humphrey’s successor, Robert B. Anderson (a former secretary of the navy and deputy defense secretary) would also be conscientious in his efforts to keep down defence expenditures, while John McElroy, Wilson’s replacement, tried to ameliorate inter-service rivalry, albeit with little success. Radford, an ardent promoter of the New Look, retired in August 1957. His successor, General Twining, was an equally enthusiastic supporter of the New Look, as was Sherman Adams, Eisenhower’s White House chief of staff. However, the latter was accused of accepting gifts in return for political favours and was forced to resign in September 1958, just before the midterm Congressional elections.4