find it where you listen to podcasts. television has changed since c-span began 41 years ago. but our mission continues. to provide an unfiltered view of government. already this year we brought you primary election coverage, the presidential impeachment process, and now the federal response to the coronavirus. you can watch all of c-span's public affairs programming on television, online, or listen on our free radio app. and be part of the national conversation through c-span's daily washington journal program or through our social media feeds. c-span, created by private industry, america's cable television companies as a public service and broad ught to you ty by your television provider. >> up next on american history tv, military historian jeremy black dates the origins of the

cold war back to world war i and challenges some general narratives about the conflict. during his talk, mr. black focuses on the role of dwight d. eisenhower has a president. we hosted this hour and 15 minute event. >> well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming out on a wet new york morning. i'll try my best to warm us up with solace at the part of the past. what i want to try and do is to use eisenhower in order to look at the cold war and use the cold war to look at eisenhower. it is worth bearing in mind that in the trials of the president dant that there were periods of time that caused your forebearers more anxiety and in some cases with much greater reason to do so. what i want to do is try and look at this president. he, of course, won -- i'm sure

you know this, but he won the 1952 election and 1956 election in the 1950s in the united states are really the use enhour years these are the years that represent a high point, not the only high point but a high point of the cold war. thinking about the cold war though, thinking about the united states, it's worth bearing in mind that the legacy, the history of the cold war was one of much of america's 20th century. indeed, the only time american forces actually fought soviet forces, communist forces in the soviet union, was not during the period that you tend to think of as the cold war which is the period from 1945 or '46 or '47 or '48, because the cold war actually began in 1917. indeed, much of eisenhower's life, much of the life of the people in the army who served with him and indeed in american political society have been

framed by the fact that america was one of the coalition of powers that went to war with the communists in the russian civil war, that idea that russia represented or the communism or what they called -- represented an ideological challenge to the united states and a challenge to american interests begins in the late 19 teens. the cold war is at the hottest between the united states and the russian communists. and in many respects what we call the cold war is in part the after echo of that. that was certainly a view taun in the soviet union f you had gone to the soviet union, we have pete brown and he told me, for example, about his visit to the soviet union at the beginning of the '70s. they were denying and decrying the united states on basis of what the united states had done. and that was in the late 19 teens. . that is because that is when american soldiers were fighting the communists.

so let's start briefly looking at that view of the cold war. the cold war starts then and it characterizes in many senses the 20 as and 30s. the second world war is a traumatic interlude and important interlude and formative for american history. and actually what happens in the late 1940s is as it were the resumption of usual services. in other words, the resumption of the conflict tension, confrontation between the soviet union and the united states and that for the eisenhower generation, that was a way of thinking about it. americans went in to the russian civil war as part of a 14 nation he could ligs. the great powers in particular that fought germany in world war i regarded the war and communists included the people that were not them. they regarded this as a continuation of world war i.

they knew that lennon had been encouraged by german intelligence. the german sent lennon to russia in 1917. they gave him passage out of switzerland. they put him on the train in petersburg. in many sense, the western forces and, you know, the communists allied with germany. they signed the treaty in the spring of 1918 and as it were the background for the german attack on the western front in 1918 is this new agreement. and for people who were geopolitical thinkers, and, of course, you must bear in mind that eisenhower's immediate background to world war ii is he'd been in the army planning division for war. the actual danger, most important strategic danger confronting the west was the idea of the combination of germany and the soviet union. germany and russia. again, not a surprise. the greatest geopolitician

writing in english in the 20th century, mckinda writing in 1904 emphasized the the threat posed by possible german-russian cooperation and indeed this seemed to be the key element. so the allied go into russia. it doesn't work. they were a weak and unpopular force. it doesn't bring you success because you apply strong military of your own. so the actual intervention failed. but what it did do is contain soviet expansion. as a result of the intervention, they escape as it were the embrace of the soviet union. they become independent powers. as a result of the intervention, the incident nearby the french, poland pushes out defeats a russian invasion, soviet invasion in 1920.

and the soviet plan which had been to use the russian revolution as first stage for a rapid takeover of europe fails. america turns into this direction in the 1920s. the russian civil war is forgotten. they turn into an isolationist direction and president such as harding, hoover are not indeed one should say roosevelt as well are not really tremendously interested in the outside world because america is the world economic power by far and also the world's leading creditor nation by far. the effort to contain soviet communism and expansionism in the 1920s and 1930s is born by the vifring and other western democracies that had been part of the coalition that defeated germany and intervened in the russian civil war to which britain and france. the reason that americans don't tend to think of the cold war as income the 20s and 30s is because they were not an active

part it in. the americans were interested in trying to restrain radicalism in their backyard. one of the reasons they go into nicaragua, for example, send the marines in the late 20s is to try to deal with what they see as left wing peasants being stirred up by the soviets. the american army in 1919 had drawn up plan white, plan white was a plan to deal with insurrection within the united states. it motivated by in particular strikes and seattle against the shipment of arms supplies to the american forces fighting the soviets. it's worth bearing in mind there is some americans who will tell you that, you know, vietnam was a unique experience, that never before had the american people been so divided over foreign policy. it's complete rubbish. it was actually a toy town. into war, you have the western powers plashgs areally britain

and france playing their role and trying to restrain soviet expansionism. this is one of the factors that encourages hitler, the ultimate revisionist, the man who wishes to completely tear up the international order, the ultimate revisionist to alie with stalin. both of them are leaders who are anti-democratic, who are opposed to western liberal societies and opposed to western capitalism and they find common interests, i mean obviously ideology is very different. they find common interests in combining in 1939. it's no descent that the powers that won independence and liberty at the end of world war i when the often empires had collapsed, poland, czechoslovakia, latvia, lithuania, estonia all fall victim to soviet union in 1939 and 1940.

and you get the power block that had been intensely feared by western common take theors as formed. fl because germany and the soviet union are allies, the british plan to beat germany by a long blockade isn't going to work. the soviets are supplying the germans with food, with oil, with other supplies. and on top of that, germany is also allied to japan and although there is a little difficulty on the japanese-soviet border in 1939, essentially that's kept quiet. there is a coalition that is of frightening proportions. nobody knows what that's going to lead tovenlt what it appears to lead to is the collapse of the world order. remember, eisenhower just to give you the background so far, born in 1890 in texas. spends his life growing up in kansas. in world war -- goes into the army. top of his class.

and goes to west point. in world war i see noes military service. eisenhower saw less military service in many sense than truman. he goes into training. training is very important. very important. you know, it's different to what most people spend world war i. in the 19's, 20s and 30s, spends a lot of time in the staff in the most active of american military kmants that, in the philippines. and for a while, he's number two under macarthur. and then he is very talented man. does he extremely well in the course at the general staff college. he comes top there. and he's put in the division of american army war planning. and for the army, like for the navy, there is no separate air force at this point, for the army and navy, what goes completely wrong is not pearl harbor. what goes totally wrong is 1940. 1940 in many senses is the c

strategy that they had all been dreading and that in a sense they had done very little because of their political masters to prepare for. this is really frightening for the americans. what it means and pears obvious that britain is going to collapse or negotiate a peace settlement with the germans, they're offering quite good peace terms to the british, what it means is that essentially the united states is going to be on its own. and at that point the situation is quite troubling. the german naval staff, a marvelous book here by the american scholar who is in florida. the german naval staff and the german navy is built up under plan zed to be ready for major war with the united states in 1944 including aircraft carriers. they never had because the war was going against them by '44.

that is the plan including that. the german naval staff is planning the projection of german power into the western hemisphere. it is planning to establish bases in the islands of spain and portugal. so the german naval staff is planning bases in the canaries, azors, the cape verde islands and the americans get really worried. i mean, if you go to this day there is a museum near norfolk, virginia, which has the fire plans for the enormous guns the americans installed in 1940 and 1941 on the eastern shore of the ch chesapeake. the recoil will take them back along the railway lines. as a result of that, and as a result of the military planning,

one of the most important pieces of legislation to come through congress in the 20th century, the two oceans act is passed in 1940. congress agrees to fund the buildup of the navy because the french navy is now out of the equation. italy on top of that entered with the axis. britain's navy is taking a pummelling and it's assumed and people like joseph kennedy is riding back from london. the assumption is the british are oufrt the equation. they vote the money for the two ocean navy act with the idea to have a navy equivalent in size to that of both japan and germany. this is a program that incidentally comes on tap and really in '43 and even more '44. this enables the americans to do fantastically well in the latter stages, the wart of pat civic.

ships laid down earlier in the 40s. so the american military is preparing for a really difficult scenario. hitler as it were, how should one describe it? hitler who is essentially a man -- i might use the term mad to describe hitler. that would be very unfair on the inside. i think that certainly apart from his astonishingly brutal ideas of the racial recasting of the world which is a form of geopolitics, he also attacks the soviet union. people sometimes say you to it's a terrible mistake to attack the soviet union, nobody's ever succeeded. well, you have to be a bit more careful than. that powers have fought their way to moscow. napoleon did it in 1812.

but at tack on the soviet union destroys the cohesion of the block that he has formed. by that very act, weakens the opposition to the united states and, of course, obviously britain. britain stayed in the war. eisenhower comes into the picture because having drawn up the army plans and the army plans initially had included the prospect of the need to invade western europe if western europe was completely dominated by the germans. eisenhower is named the commander of american forces in europe late '42. he is responsible for the torch invasion of french north africa in november of '42. he then is in charge of the american operations in the mediterranean. he is then transferred to prepare for the invasion of western europe. so this is where we are in 1944. d day has succeeded eisenhower by 44 is actually america's leading general as wirt in the

field. and shall we say obviously he's not actually personally in a patent or bradley role. he is actually an area commander of the most important area command. as you can see already by then you're getting the configuration of the cold war building up. because the very same time that the allies are invading france or mofgz to germany, soviet forces are making rapid progress in eastern europe. what is interesting and this is an aspect of the very notable aspect of the allied case in world war ii is that military and the british military and the soviet military play very little role in the actual policy making at this stage. ien into a way, what's interesting is the military respect and follow the constitutional norms. it is the american governments that sets american policy, not the officers. again, the contrast is very

noticeable with japan. where there is a military government. tojo falls after the loss of sipan then a new military government comes in and, of course in, germany, the generals, some of the generals, minority of them, in fact, they try to overthrow hitler and n. 1944. they make a bad job of it. nevertheless, what you actually got infer this case is as it were the interaction of politics playing a big role. eisenhower has no real views in the sense he does what he's told on the strategic questions. as you know, if you look at the map there, there is an enormous roul between churchill and rows veltd and with that i suppose you could say between the american and british policymakers whether they should invade the balkans, whether they should in particular land on what is the coast of yugoslavia

and move into hungary and austria to preempt the soviet advance. churchill was by 1944 convinced the cold war, what we call the cold war, what we call the the soviet union, he was convinced it was just going to start all over again. and indeed, by late '44, british troops are fighting communists in athens. you know, the british had sent troops in there. the communists try and take over the government. british troops are actually fighting communists in athens by '44. roosevelt thinks this is totally appalling. churchill, who had been secretary of state for war during the russian civil war, had actually taken key role, like much of churchill's military career, not very successfully so, but who had been secretary of state for war during the russian civil war, just sees himself as taking part in the same role. ultimately, the americans take a benign view of stalin. roosevelt is convinced he can talk to stalin.

he is convinced that he can get stalin to be reasonable. roosevelt in that is a total fool. the stalin tricks repeatedly over the fate of poland, which is the major issue, and this map is rapidly transformed into a map in which soviet forces are in control in eastern europe. and against that background, it is not really surprising that the communist governments are put in power. eisenhower by now has become in immediate postwar years, has become the army chief of staff. and as army chief of staff, he has to respond to this situation. he's in a very difficult position. the american public want a peace dividend out of the second world war. they want to have the troops back home. the troops have signed up for the duration. they've been conscripted for the duration, or they volunteered for the duration, and there is

an enormous demobilization in the american military immediately after the war. the number of divisions falls rapidly. the number of warships falls rapidly. and this is encouraged by the new military technology, because the new military technology, the atom bomb's dropped in japan in 1945, appear to prove that america could actually ensure its interests in a very inexpensive way. and i suppose one of the keys to american policy making in the entire period from 1945 onwards is that the americans wish to have a situation which they can be a great power relatively inexpensively. allen's predecessor, harvey sicamon used to refer to american policy as cheap hawkery. i think that may be going a little bit too far, but the point is that the american public did not want a fundamental alteration of their living standards and they didn't want a fundamental alteration of their constitutional political

culture to match the situation of being, as it were, prepared for world war iii. i mean, obviously, nobody asked the soviet population what they wanted. and if they expressed an opinion under stalin, they'd get shot, so it was just as well not to. stalin, incidentally, goes on having his executions of dissidents right up until the end of his life in 1953. so, eisenhower is in charge in the army of an army that is demobilizing, an army that is in many senses, many of the commanders are discontented. i think that's a fair comment. there's no equivalent to the so-called revolt of the admirals in the navy. the admirals, of course, and the crisis linked to forest staal's suicide, as it were, the navy's fury that the carrier building program is jacked in the late '40s again to make way for the strategic air command. but eisenhower faces a similar scenario. and eisenhower himself leaves the military, and he comes to new york. he actually becomes president at

columbia university. he comes to new york and he leaves both the political world and the military world. he is reborn, if you like, by the cold war, because the cold war becomes more intensive in the late '40s. '48, the soviet takeover of check scloe czechoslovakia proves a move that is too much even for the americans. partly, there's the resonance of munich ten years earlier. and combined with the fact that the british and the french are bust and the british and the french have been pressing the americans to take over greater security roles, and combined with the berlin blockade, the attempt by the soviets to drive western forces out of berlin, it leads to the americans to determine to take a more active role in international relations, and specifically to the formation of nato, the north atlantic treaty organization, in 1949.

that is significant because it brings with it an american guarantee of the security of western europe, and it's a guarantee which is substantiated by the deployment of troops there, and not just troops -- aircraft carrying atom bombs. and on the basis of that, eisenhower gets a new role. he becomes the first military commander of nato forces. and his vital job that he is given is to make these forces interoperable, very difficult to do. it's to actually start to draw up plans for war -- for how to conduct war in the event of conflict with the soviet union. not easy. not easy at all, because you're dealing with so many impond rabbles, imponderables that have been increased in 1949 because the soviets have exploded a nuclear device. as yet, they in practical terms have not weaponized it sufficiently, because as you probably know, you can relatively easily make an atom bomb. it's the actual turning it into

a weapon that you can use is a slightly different matter. as of yet, they haven't done that, but it's clear that the american monopoly of nuclear weaponry has ended, it's ending, that the american monopoly of delivery systems is going to end very rapidly. the soviets are building long-range bombers designed to bomb the united states, which really is troubling to american planners. so the question is what to do about it. and eisenhower in his last year spends a lot of time on military planning. he also has opportunities to, as it were, see the deficiencies, problems, and opportunities posed by alliance politics. eisenhower is brilliant as a political general. he's a brilliant choice for running a coalition army. i mean, the contrast is very interesting with macarthur. the korean war is a coalition war, you know, because it's united nations' army, there are americans there as the largest non-south korean contingent, but lots of other people there --

brits there as the second biggest foreign force. there are people from a whole host of countries. there are french troops, turkish troops, et cetera. and macarthur really ts these people off. and indeed, you usually -- every country does this. every country always explains its own history in its own terms. what americans probably don't realize adequately is one of the reasons macarthur had to go is that -- for truman to consider. macarthur could not run coalition warfare, whereas eisenhower was brilliant at running coalition warfare, and he understood the opportunities provided by large numbers of troops in western europe who, even if they're fighting quality might be variable, they could be relied upon, not all of them, many of them, to oppose a soviet advance, but also the problems posed by the fact that these countries had other different political roles, and particularly the kind of tension

you're to see with the sewage crisis of 1956, eisenhower's anger at british and french going to war with egypt, is already there when he's in command of nato. people haven't really picked that up. because he is already, like most american policymakers of that period, angry with the british and the french because they are devoting so much of their military resources to trying to maintain their authority in their colonies. and you know, as far as eisenhower, as far as most american policymakers are concerned, this is totally anachronistic. this is not the way to confront communi communism, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. so there's already that tension. now, it's not my job to talk to you about your politics. one has to be very careful, if one's a foreigner coming to somebody's country. well, i mention that. your president is about to come to my country and tell us we have to stay in the european union, and he doesn't appreciate how that is going to irritate the british, whether they agree with him or not. you know, you think about it if the british prime minister was to come to america and tell you you need to all give up guns.

you know, you'd be very offended. but the -- eisenhower becomes the republican candidate in a very interesting fashion. he is the only former general to become president in the 20th century. it had been a common practice prior to that in american history. many of americans, many american presidents, both well-known presidents, people like ulysses grant or andrew jackson or g george washington had been generals and people who may not have been as well known, like henry harrison. there have been many presidents who were generals. no more than four union generals of the civil war become president in the late 19th century. but this practice had gone. teddy roosevelt had had a military background, but his military background had been not that of being a general. and in practical terms, his military experience was rather that as a civil servant and

politics in the navy and not, for example, as an ad myrell. he would have liked to have been the admiral, but he wasn't the admiral. in fact, it's rather interesting to imagine what he would have been like as the admiral. but the idea of having a general as president did not seem that implausible to people at the end of the '40s, beginning of the '50s. remember, america had fought the war with a civilian male population, many of them turned into soldiers. it had been a cohesive national experience. it had been a national experience which, there was always differences, and there are always differences, but it had been actually in terms of america's wars a singularly benign and a singularly inclusive experience, and eisenhower benefited from that and benefited from his war record. there was also the danger that there was another general who wanted to be president, and yet again, macarthur comes up, apparently repeatedly, emerges

in eisenhower's career, and there were many republicans that took the view that eisenhower would be a much better choice than macarthur, which is probably correct. there were civilian politicians as well, but none of them really had the traction. and also, the republicans, having lost elections repeatedly -- republicans hadn't won an election for over two decades at the presidential level. they had won congressional midterms, but they had not won a presidential election since 1928. this did mean, this did encourage them to think they needed to, as it were, reinvent the political lexicon. eisenhower does very well. he's a good candidate, he strikes people as reasonable and rational, and he comes to be president in the beginning of '53, at a time in which the cold war is at a very high point. with the encouragement of stalin, the north koreans had invaded the south in 1953 -- sorry, 1950. the korean war is going on.

it had proved much harder than the west had imagined, despite the use of large-scale airpower, despite naval superiority, despite deploying considerable troops. it had proved possible to stop the communist forces, but not to actually defeat them. that was an enormous shock, and it encouraged a debate in political circles at that point, a debate that very much affected the republican party, but also american policy by making more generally, as to whether the chief priority should be containment, which in a sense, you know, one knows george cannon's work, but in a tense had become the policy of the truman government, or whether it should be rollback. rollback, the idea of pushing back the communist powers in some way and by some fashion. eisenhower was to be significant, because in a sense, what he to reconceptualize containment. he was not to actually endorse rollback. he regarded rollback as far too

dangerous in an atomic age when one didn't know what might happen. but in the specific context of 1953, with a korean war that is going on forever and where, obviously, communist ideology argues that the communists are always going to be willing because they represent the people, allegedly, they are always going to be willing to bear the burden greater than the heed nistic and consumeristic democracies and there was no way they were going to stop. eisenhower uses the atom bomb and the american ability to drop it in large numbers. the americans had not had many atom bombs in 1945, only three. they had many more by 1953. he threatens to use the atom bomb if the war doesn't end. very strong brinkmanship is shown in 1953, much stronger brinkmanship than needs to be shown in ending the vietnam war, and it succeeds. and that's one of his great foreign policy successes, one of his great strategic successes, is to put the korean peninsula into a kind of long freeze.

not a very attractive outcome, certainly an unattractive outcome for the north korean population who are left in slave society. but ending up with a situation which provides an effective containment there. and remember, an effective containment, which contrasted with the failure of the commen tang in china and what contrasted with the fact the french were about to fail in vietnam, laos, and cambodia. eisenhower, by the way, given that the vietnam conflict is to become important, eisenhower urges the french to fight on in indochina. it's worth bearing in mind that after french defeated tien phen fu, the french are still in control of all of the cities in french indochina. in vietnam itself, they're in control of hanoi, saigon, hui, et cetera, far more than the south vietnam or americans would have been in control of during the vietnam war.

the americans by late '53 are paying 90% of the cost of the french war effort in vietnam. the french are bust. all of the western european countries are bust as a result of world war ii. the french are bust. the french say that they will go on fighting if the americans will commit troops, and eisenhower decides not to. he decides that this, you know, cost-benefit analysis. he looks at it in having seen the experience of the korean war. he decides it's not sensible, not worth it, and indeed, the americans pull back, and the geneva conference is essentially mediated by the british and the soviets in order to produce an unworkable compromise, but an unworkable compromise that at least permits disengagement by the french. eisenhower's essential policy of containment is one in which he argues that rollback is too dangerous.

he sees, he begins a process of summitry with the soviets. stalin dies in '53. he's succeeded by collective leadership, from which eventually khrushchev emerges as the main figure, but it takes a while for khrushchev to emerge. and eisenhower begins these summits. and at 1955 at geneva, he says to milankov, then the leading soviet figure, he says that the effective thermal nuclear weaponry -- remember we've moved from the atom bomb to the h-bomb and the soviets, the americans initially develop the hydrogen bomb, which has a far greater lethality than the atomic bomb. the soviets are able to copy that more rapidly than they had the atomic bomb. so, by 1954, both sides have the hydrogen bomb. and eisenhower says to milenkov that if there is war between the two powers, it will be the end of human life in the northern

hemisphere. obviously, that's where the majority of the nuclear exchange would be concentrated. he's prepared to admit there is going to go on being life in the southern hemisphere, but doesn't think that's much of a bet for the americans or the soviet union, both in the northern hemisphere, and i think that conditions a lot of his attitude. he's one of these figures who understands what war entails, and he also understands that the arithmetic of nuclear deterrence is one that can be used to deterrent effect but that also poses consequences if one moves to war. because of the great potential of the nuclear weaponry and because, as well, eisenhower does not wish america to have an extraordinarily big military establishment, what he actually does, and it's a paradoxical because of his background in the army, is he continues the rundown in the army and the navy in the mid-1950s. the army and the navy had revived during the korean war, because you needed both of them,

because that wasn't a war that went nuclear. but in the mid-'50s, eisenhower decides to put much more focus on developing airpower and the new generation of bombers that are going to be used to drop thermal nuclear weapons. and the united states moves in that direction with one other important addition, that eisenhower is a great believer in the use of what we might call, again, an interesting choice from his background, what we might call subversion. he believes that one should use a regular means to overthrow hostile governments. he's very much aware of and supports the use of that in the case of iran and in the case of guatemala. and to considerable extent, this is successful. obviously he doesn't like it if other powers do the same thing. that's fair enough. i mean, self-interest is part of great power politics. and because it takes us to thinking about something that's worth noticeable for the 1960s,

the biggest american success in the use of force in the 1960s, and in geopolitics, was the role of the cia in helping right-wing indonesian generals to topple sukarno in indonesia in 1955-1956, and then in the destruction of the indonesian communist party, a civil conflict in which about 120,000 people died. far more successful than the vietnam war. far more important than the vietnam war. indonesia is a larger area, fourth largest population in the world, enormous strategic resources. let me just say if we have got -- where have we got. no, we go back the other way then. there. wait a minute. there. i take it everybody knows where indonesia is. let's see. let me just see if i can get this one. there you go. it's all of that area there. and strategically much more important than south vietnam, which is a relatively modest

sized country. incidentally, indonesia also is one of the greatest sources of rorld oil outside the middle east. indonesia has oil in both sumatra and borneo. the americans under eisenhower had tried to topple sugano in 1957. cia operation linked to opposition to the most popular island is java. that is where the government was focused. the cia had backed opposition in sumatra, and you know, it used aircraft, same sort of things that were to be used in the bay of pigs. it didn't work out. but it very much reflected eisenhower's belief that it was possible alongside one's nuclear hygemeny to use different means, shall we say, means that probably in international law to put it mildly were illegal, in order to foster and further a

world order that was more acceptable. the other thing that eisenhower does is he extends the security architecture of the world as containment. so, he develops first the baghdad pact, then seto. an astonishing situation for us to think about, that iraq was under a pro western government in 1958, air fields around northern iraq, kirkil and mosul, were to be used to bomb the soviet union in the event of war. iran is a western ally. pakistan and turkey are western allies. eisenhower i've that region as a geopolitical linchpin for p putting pressure on the soviets and tries to develop that alliance system. big disappointment, bluntly, when the government is overthrown in iraq in 19578, an overthrow by nationalist army officers to which the soviet union is closely linked. a big disappointment. and the other one is -- here we

are again. he very much is in favor of trying to develop seto, so thailand, for example, the philippines, and to also keep the relationship going with australia and new zealand. so, there is a security architecture, a geopolitical security architecture, under eisenhower, and it works reasonably well. the biggest rows about his reputation with the cold war during his actual period in time rest in part on the suez crisis and in part on the so-called missile gap. let's try and take those separately. suez crisis, 1956. colonel nasa -- all of these nationalist figures who, as it were, were held up as heroes by the left around the world, they tended to be army officers who had seized power through coups. colonel nasser had seized power in a coup in egypt. the british had left egypt under an agreement with the egyptians

that they would remain the directing authority over the suez canal. in 1954, they had pulled their troops out of the suez canal and the egyptians had agreed that freedom of navigation would continue through the canal. the egyptians then seized the suez canal, and the british government -- you can take your view on this, it's not my business to have any particular view in favor or opposed to a british government in 1956 -- we've got so much in our history to be concerned about. one doesn't have to, as it were, worry about that. but the british government -- the british government saw colonel nasser as a threat, essentially to pro-british, pro-western governments in the middle east, to jordan in particular, to iraq, which until 1958 was a western government, and in particular, these were both monarchys. these were both hash mite monarchys, different branches of the dynasty. and they saw nasser as a left-wing revolutionary who was going to overthrow these british

allies. the french were concerned about the fact that nasser was supporting opposition in algeria, which was not just a french colony, but under french law was part of metropolitan france, in other words, mps from algeria sat in the french umbra to deputy. so, both britain and france saw egypt as a revolutionary force, and of course, the israelis were really concerned because egypt had been supporting the plo and sponsoring terrorism, quite large-scale terrorist attacks against israel. so, the three powers dream up a scheme in which the israelis are going to attack egypt, the british and the french will then claim to arbitrate and to send their troops into the suez canal zone, and the idea is that the egyptian government will be defeated and overthrown. it didn't work.

and as with all schemes that didn't work, everybody rushes to explain why it might never have worked. i think you have to be very careful of this. it could have worked if it had been better handled. it was very poorly handled. they spent too long doing it. and you know, if you want to overthrow a government, you need to do it quickly. that's the basic rule. the americans intervene in the sense that they make it absolutely clear that they're furious with this. they say that they will block all shipments to britain and to france, that they will not help the sterling or the frank. in fact, they would take active steps to drive them down, and both these countries have weak finances. and the british government panics and pulls out, and the israelis are bullied into pulling out of the sinai, and the whole thing becomes a mess. the british government falls. eden resigns as prime minister. and the british start the scuttle for empire, as they give it away, empire as quickly as

they can in the late '50s, early '60s. the view on this has varied. some people have said eisenhower was absolutely right, that the british and french were behaving in an anachronistic fashion, that trying to hold up imperial interests was wrong as well as foolish, and that eisenhower understood instead that it was necessary for america to appeal to liberal thought in the third world, to anticolonial thought in the third world, and to lead a new world order of the third world against the soviets. that's the pro view. the anti view is that eisenhower was naive and stupid. he didn't realize that the choice was, in fact, between nationalist regimes that would look to the left and regimes that were more conservative but would be willing to go on looking to the right. you can take your point of view. both points of view have some point to them, and it's going to go on being an issue in

eisenhower's case. eisenhower used the excuse of the suez crisis to explain why he didn't intervene in the suppression of the hungarian communist liberal movement in 1956. that was naive. there was no way he was ever going to intervene in that. i think he had already made it clear that there was going to be no rollback, there was not going to be american military intervention in hungary. eisenhower wasn't willing to risk world war iii for that. so i think one has to be clear about that, just as johnson's options during the vietnam war were conditioned by fact that he didn't want to risk world war iii. so, the linkage between hungary and suez is often asserted in united states, but it's rubbish. the other thing he's often criticized for and was to be criticized bitterly for in 1960, and even more his vice president was to be criticized, richard nixon, is the alleged missile

gap. as you may recall, the soviets are the first to put a man in orbit. the ability to send up a satellite, which of course is fired from the ground with a rocket, led to fear and anxiety, which owed a lot to khrushchev's speeches, that the soviet union, if it could put a man into orbit, could put a missile into orbit, and that therefore, america's security had been compromised badly. and this was very much a line that the democrats were going to take. the great warmonger john f. kennedy was to use it in 1960. well, it's true. he used it in 1960 when he berated nixon for failing to maintain america's defenses. it's a pretty bogus argument. most military historians now agree that, in fact, that there was no significant gap between the united states and the soviet union, that the soviet union was not able to weaponize its missiles at the rate that some

american politicians suggested, that the americans were pressing ahead with weaponizing their missiles as well. and at the end of the 1950s sees the united states with quite a strong nuclear and thermonuclear capability. where the united states is weaker militarily is in the same field that the soviets are weaker militarily, which was that of counterinsurgency warfare. they had not really developed their military for that, and that was to have an enormous consequence during the vietnam war. as a whole, eisenhower emerges as a politician of prudence and pragmatism. he sought to make alliances work. he sought to use summit negotiations in order to try and get the soviets to accept that there were rules in the family of nations. he benefited from the fact that khrushchev, a very volatile politician, but that khrushchev himself wanted a peace dividend.

khrushchev wound down the size of the soviet military after 1953. khrushchev criticized stalin. khrushchev was not a particular warmonger. he wanted soviet expansion. he developed soviet influence in egypt, which is why, of course, in the end eisenhower admitted that he had been wrong to try and topple nasser. but he developed soviet influence in egypt, tried to bridge beyond containment. but khrushchev himself didn't want war. and it's very interesting. the cuban missile crisis reflected khrushchev's knowledge that he had been outmatched in his long-range missiles by the americans, and his wish to try in his eyes compensate for that by installing intermediate-range missiles from a position of weakness in cuba. that was to be his deterrent. so, khrushchev was in a sense a lucky opponent for eisenhower to have, because ultimately, he did not wish to risk war himself.

both men had experienced, either directly or indirectly -- khrushchev had been, of course, a civil servant, but nevertheless in the war industry sector of the soviet union under stalin -- both men had experienced world war ii. they knew what it entailed. they understood the risks. and as a result, both men ran the geopolitics of the 1950s with a degree of prudence that is impressive. from our point of view, being mindful of those who suffered under soviet tyranny in eastern europe, who suffered under communist tyranny in china in the last years of eisenhower's presidency were also the years of the great leap forward in china in which millions died in brutal and mismanaged politics. china in the late '50s was not too different to north korea today. we are actually mindful of the human cost entailed. but in terms of the prudence, in terms of what could have been

achieved by military means, eisenhower actually made a pretty good call. he was one, as a result of that, because i think one's ability in foreign policy and as a head of state of the united states, as the head of the, chief of the armed forces of the leading power in the world and very much the leading power in the free world, is to think responsibly about what one can achieve and to try and define one's policies and to try and understand geopolitics in that light. i think eisenhower was a great american president. he was also a great man because he didn't see himself as a great man. that ultimately is one of the great, in my view, signs of personal quality. thank you very much. now, i've been asked to read the following. i will be taking questions from the audience in a few moments. if you would like to ask a question, please approach one of the two standing mics in the

aisles. before asking your question, please tell us your name. and out of respect for the other people waiting their turn, please ask just one question, and that means one question, not one question in two or three or four parts. two staff members are on hand, if you need any assistance. thank you. sir. >> thank you very much, professor black. i admire your knowledge and your accent. i'm michael wolff-medosent here. i'd like to ask you about hitler's decision to attack the united states shortly after pearl harbor. i'm assuming -- if i'm wrong you'll tell me -- we were content to fight a pacific war if hitler had not attacked us. so, what was his reason for doing that? >> thank you. hitler wasn't a man given to explaining himself greatly, but he did take the view -- i mean, you know, there are sources, the

gerbels, the diariy's one of the best, the minutes. he took the view that america and germany in effect were already at war, that there had already been clashes between the navies of america and german u-boats in the western atlantic, america had taken over convoying duties in the western atlantic and he took the view that either they were at war or war was inevitable, and this led him to that decision. it was a highly foolish decision. there's no two ways about it. as far as what would america have done but for that declaration of war by germany, it's very difficult to say. i mean, roosevelt was convinced that germany represented a terrible threat to america's interests, and he was correct in that view. it would have been harder to persuade those people who were japan first people, like admiral king, to focus on germany, if germany hadn't declared war, but i suspect the fact that germany was already the ally of japan,

would have compromised germany's reputation in the eyes of so much of american public opinion, that it would have probably been possible to squeeze through war with germany as well, but i don't know. sorry. yes, sir. >> my name is len elman, i'm a member of the historical society. i was just wondering how influential in the formulation of eisenhower's policies was his secretary of state, john foster dulles, with brinkmanship. and i also would like to remark that if eisenhower in the mid-1950s had decided to wind down the military, i wish he would have notified my draft board, because i and most of my friends were drafted in that year. >> yes. well, as far as the latter is concerned, if you look at the number of divisions in the american army, the number of divisions falls in the mid-50s and the number of naval vessels falls. obviously, they still needed to man those who survived, but they actually had a smaller -- and indeed, the same story is

similar of world war ii. america set out to fight with 100 divisions, compared to the soviet union's over 300 and germans' over 200. in fact, the americans didn't raise 100 divisions. so, obviously for every person that risks their life, it was a traumatic threat and risk. but in terms of the global comparator, america is a per-capita military was much, much smaller than that of the soviet union. as far as the -- first, remind me exactly of the first one again? >> john foster dulles. >> dulles is a very influential figure, but eisenhower himself, as from his position as supreme commander of nato, is already well versed with the notion of containment. he doesn't need to be taught containment by dulles. as with other things, the detailed implementation he benefits from advice, but he already knows about containment from his role in nato. >> i'm jim p aasinic, and i wan to follow up on that john foster dulles question. i read that he was one of the

cabinet members that almost intimidated eisenhower. and with his brother, allen, as the head of the cia, was that the reason that in the mid-'50s they decided to go to subversion rather than direct confrontation? >> as far as subversion, it was the easiest way to do it if you didn't wish to risk war, so that was the key. intimidate? no, i think that's a bit tough. i mean, eisenhower was surrounded by some people who were quite strong characters. jay edgar hoover was a very unusually figure. i don't think he was intimidated by them, but i think he had to be mindful of them. he ran -- he didn't run it as a kind of imperial presidency. and because he didn't run it as an imperial presidency, it was very easy to see. and clement atley, the joke about atley in the late '40s when he was prime minister, is an empty car drove up and mr. atley got out of it. that was very unfair on atley,

who incidentally like eisenhower had a military background. atley was known by many of his contemporaries as major atley. he had served on the western front and i suspect that's one of the reasons why he get on with truman, they both served on the western front in world war i. no, i don't think intimidated, but he wasn't an imperial president. >> percy brown. nato is a relatively successful organization. seto was not. i'd be interested in your views on the comparison contrast of the two. >> thank you. that's again a very interesting question. i think in the case of seto, you're dealing with regimes that were very poorly grounded in support within that political culture or, indeed, that society. so if you look at the iraqi month arc monarchy, iraq as a country had been created out of the collapse of the ottoman empire at the end of world war ii. a branch of the hashimites had been put in.

there was no real grounding in it. there was no real popularity for it. in the case of iran, it was only the second of the members of the parlevy dynasty that had been put in. the first one only came to power in the military coup. he again had been a colonel in the 1920s. so again, a relatively poorly grounded regime. pakistan had only been there since partition in the '40s. so, all of these are poorly grounded regimes who have a very precarious political legitimacy, a political legitimacy that essentially rests on force and tribal manipulation, neither of which they're really able to control the dynamic of, and it's not surprising that they fall. now, there are problems with lots of the european states in that period. there's no two ways about that. but at least most of them have got a sense of nationhood and political stability, that it's a bit longer than that. it could have gone terribly wrong. i mean, one had seen what had happened to eastern europe at the hands of the soviet advance,

and it could have gone terribly wrong in western europe as well. and there were american war plans, for example, if the soviets taking over all of western europe, and the americans having to invade. i mean, they had identified beaches in pembrokeshire on the coast of wales where they were going to land sort of an operation torchlike effect, you know, sail across the atlantic from norfolk, virginia, and land there. and they were quite prepared for that as a possible scenario. you should always look at military plans, because they tell you a lot about the geopolitical assumptions and anxieties of the period. sir. >> my name's russ newman. i have a story in my head and i'd like to ask you if i've got it more or less correct. in 1954, after dien den fu, dulles participated in peace talks that promised a vietnamwide election in 1956, and then dulles engineered the

rej reneging on that promise, so there was none, and a ho chi minh reunification. had he not reneged on that promise there may not have been a vietnam war. >> the geneva peace talks agreed on a whole there were to be vietnamwide elections. it was nothing specific to dulles. that was an agreement of those peace talks. each side, i think it's fair so aye both the south vietnamese and north vietnamese were behaving in appalling fashion. the north vietnamese were scarcely interested in democracy. in the north, ho chi minh had set around liquidating all nationalists who weren't communists. and in south, you've got a totalitarian regime as well. what a widespread election would have been like, nobody has the faintest idea. whether it was wise for america to get involved in the vietnam war is another question. that's a different question. i think in many senses, it reflects kennedy's attempt to fight a more active containment.

it reflects his anxiety about chi china. 1962, the chinese success against india is absolutely crucial in explaining the background of the vietnam war. it reflects his links with very strongly catholic anti communist circles, particularly around the cardinal archbishop of boston. kennedy was very much a supporter of catholic political movements elsewhere in the world and attempted to define a space for pushing back communist accordingly, so i wouldn't say it's just to do with the 1950s, no. >> thank you. i'm glen luis. did eisenhower really have an effective policy? or what was his view with respect to the middle east and asia? i mean, he seemed to understand europe well. he kind of left it to his successors to deal with -- nixon

dealt with moving china away from the russian war bit. there is where the middle east was moved in a more pro-american way. did eisenhower just not care much about that part of the world, other than in suez and ending korea, or did he -- >> that's an excellent question. you're asking me about pretty much the whole of the world there, so let's see if i can very quickly summarize. for most of the policymakers of the period, the priority was very much europe. maybe it was excessively europe, but that was very much europe. eisenhower's view on east asia, on china -- at that stage, china, mt. setoning was closely aligned with the soviets. western intelligence wasn't picking up the strains between them. 1954, for example, the soviets refused to sell the chinese submarines. in 1958, the chinese refuse to put up transponder stations so

that the soviets can control their submarines in the pacific via china. the mow was furious for khrushchev's denounceation of stalin. so there are a lot of intentions. people don't pick it up. i think you could say that the biggest intelligence failure of the post-1950 period is the length of time it takes the west to realize that the eastern bloc is fundamentally divided and that that provides enormous strategic opportunities for the west. as far as the middle east is concerned, eisenhower believed, like most american policymakers, both democrats and republicans, that it would be possible to take these newly independent ex-colonies and to turn them into pro-american liberal democracies that would be willing to trade with the west. he got that wrong. he got wrong, badly got egypt wrong, as indeed did kennedy get egypt wrong. you could argue that the first american president that understood the middle east was

lyndon johnson. eisenhower was hostile to israel. he regarded israel as a cause of instability, and he was particularly angry about the '56 war. i wouldn't say that he was necessarily lacking in understanding of the world. as president, and the same thing is true of modern presidents, he focused on what seemed to be the major issue. and to him, the major issue was relations with the soviet union, which is not surprising. i mean, it's the soviet union that had intercontinental ballistic missiles pointing at the united states. it would have been rather bothering if he had regarded the principal challenge to the united states as egypt, which it clearly was not. the other thing that's worth bearing in mind about the cold war is eisenhower's domestic policies were also to do with the cold war. there is a canard in america that civil rights was an achievement essentially of the '60s, and that's because that's how it suits the american public myth and the american

generations that went through that and et cetera, et cetera. actually, the real achievements of civil rights are in the '40s and '50s. truman's desegregation of the military, which was absolutely crucial, but also the use by eisenhower showing at the end of the day that he was willing to send down troops to the south and to federalize the national guard there, sending the airborne division, you know, down to little rock was a really decisive move. and the reason he did that -- i mean, he actually -- you know, he was not -- he wasn't a racist particularly. i mean, he wasn't a woodrow wilson figure, for example, who really was a racist. but the reason he did that is jay edgar hoover was on to him continually about the danger to america presented by what hoover thought was the potential of civil rights movements for subversion by the communists. and it's very interesting this is the way of the american -- all countries have a public myth. my country has loads of public myths, but yours is that essentially civil rights comes about as sort of nice people

making nice decisions in the '60s. civil rights owes much more to hard-headed men in the '50s thinking how to strengthen america in the cold war. you, sir. >> my name is norman arnof. i'm a regular questioner. and i would like to hear your views on the following. americans tend to rate their presidents. in terms of rating a president inadequate or great, what is your opinion as to who gets the better rating, the president who takes us to war, the president who keeps us out of war, or the president who gets us out of a war? and if you could answer the question in terms of contemporary rating and historical rating, i would appreciate it. [ laughter ] >> well, i'm more than -- don't

ask a supplemental question, sir. i'm more than happy for you to ask questions about that, but do think about being more precise. if you think about it, the same president may well keep you out of a war and take you into a war. roosevelt is a classic example of that. so it's much more complex than you're suggesting. what would i say? the united states, when they elect a president -- i'm trying -- i always try and explain this to people in britain because they simply don't understand it in britain. the united states is electing somebody who has two very different functions. they're head of state and ceo, or head of government, if you like. the ability of somebody to be both head of state and express what you want as a head of state and to be ceo, head of government, very rarely do you find the same equally so in the same man or potentially in the future the same woman. so you're always going to be disturbed by the reputation of one or other. as far as going to war is concerned, some wars are necessary to fight. there can well be crucial national and wider interests to do that, and that's even more significant, since america became the great power. you could argue that roosevelt's

great failure and the most enormous failure of the americans in the 20th century was the refusal of the americans to fight when neutral powers were being attacked by germany in places like poland in '39, norway, denmark, the netherlands, belgium in '40, all of which were neutral powers. so, you could argue that, actually, roosevelt's great failing was not going to war then, or you can praise him for moving america towards war in '41. in the case of truman, you have a president who both ends a war and starts another one. so i think it's -- you've got to be very, very cautious about where you're going to put your judgmental issue. and what war means -- i will remind most people here, i'm sure you know this anyway, but over the last half century, powers have gone to war without declaring war. when the war actually is and what war is, is often now a much more complex matter. nobody on that side. next gentlemen. >> my name is eric zaler.

first of all, thank you for an interesting summary of 20th-century foreign policy. really impressive. the cold war was clearly a very dangerous time, but the bipolar architecture and the concept of containment sort of creates a structure that it seemed understandable and comprehensible. since 1989, at least to me, it's not clear that there's either a similar structure or a similar policy. is it likely that we're ever going to see a sort of global foreign policy concept similar to containment that might explain what's going on in our very complex, multipolar world today? >> thank you. the answer is i don't know. as far as the insecurity, what i would say is this. the cold war becomes less disturbing from the '70s because the ability of, depending upon your point of view, america to benefit from the china/soviet

discord or china to benefit from the american/soviet discord -- you know, you can look at it either ways -- that ability means that america is in relative terms in a much stronger position. half of soviet and continental ballistic missiles are pointed against china by the late '70s. by the late '70s, china is at war with vietnam. and in many senses, america wins the cold war cheaply, precisely because the chinese are there on their side. you could argue that what's really caused the instability since 1989 is not the end of the cold war, and it is not the idiocies of fundamentalist terrorism, but it is really the breakdown of the strategic achievement of the '70s and to which the fact that in the 2000s -- the real flaw in the 2000s in policy making, and it may not have been possible to do anything about it -- i'm just talking about the real flaw in

consequenceal terms is china and russia realigns together, making them each more threatening to the west. if russia chose to cause a nuance in georgia or balancics, they know china won't restrain them, may even strongly encourage them. if china is going to be difficult in the east or south china seas, they know the russians will probably encourage them. that creates much more strain for the united states, whoever is the president to the united states, whichever party is governing. and that was the real flaw of american strategy in the 2000s, that it didn't respond to that. and to be frank, i don't know how they're going to get out of that one. if there is a big breakdown in relations between russia and china, then that creates renewed possibilities for america. if there isn't, then that obviously con strains choices. sir. >> yes, i was wondering if you could comment on eisenhower's warning about the dangers of the military industrial complex,

what gave them insight into that, whether that warning has been heeded. >> yes, that's again a very interesting point. i mean, at the end, as you know this, he gave the warning at the very end of his career. i think that it's fair to say that there was a degree of accuracy in that. he was particularly bothered by the extent to which individual congressmen had become aligned with industrial interests in things like pushing through procurement policies for their particular constituencies. and he thought what that was doing was destabilizing the planning and procurement process and not producing any consistency. and he was almost certainly correct in that. but ultimately, the united states chose, and probably wisely, to tap into the talent and entrepreneurial capital of its society by using existing industrial structures, and that was probably a much wiser pattern than the pattern of state-controlled and militarization seen with the soviet union.

one last point, something i'm afraid i forgot to say -- another aspect of domestic policy, of course, which was very closely linked to military purposes, one of the major eisenhower legacies, is the interstate network. as you probably are aware, major reason behind the interstate network was in order to enable american government to move forces more readily within the united states and not be so dependent on coastal waterways. so, there's all sorts of ways in which the policies of the eisenhower government, and ways that you wouldn't necessarily think of, were linked to actually the cold war. thank you. yes. >> when's your next lecture on any topic? [ applause ] >> well, jeremy black, that was wonderful. we are working on the next lecture. we'll let you know. stay in tune. we also want to thank the foreign policy research institute for partnering and

collaborating with us. and just a reminder, may 21st, as allen luxembourg said, tom springer will be with us to talk about innovations in military affairs from the time of napoleon to eisenhower. and we hope to see you all back. let's give a great hand to jeremy black. thank you. >> thank you very much, dale. >> thank you. you're watching a special edition of american history tv, airing weekdays. tonight, beginning at 8:00 eastern, programs on the battle of okinawa. 75 years ago, over the course of 82 days, the battle raged in the pacific. the japanese launched nearly 2,000 kamikaze attacks on american ships. the fleet that came to stay is a u.s. navy film assembled primarily from aerial and ship

combat footage by hollywood filmmaker and navy ensign bud bodiker. the film was part of american history tv's real america series, which looks at history through archival films. american history tv, now and over the weekend, on c-span3. every saturday night, american history tv takes you to college classrooms around the country for "lectures in history." >> why do you all know who lizzie borden is? and raise your hand if you had ever heard of this murder, the jean harris murder trial before this class. >> the deepest cause where we'll find the true meaning of the revolution was in this transformation that took place in the minds of the american people. >> and so, we're going to talk about both of these sides of this story here, right? the tools, the techniques of slave owner power. and we'll also talk about the tools and techniques of tower that were practiced by enslaved people. >> watch history professors lead discussions with their students on topics ranging from the

american revolution to september 11th. "lectures in history" on c-span3, every saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv. and "lectures in history" is available as a podcast. find it where you listen to podcasts. up next on american history tv, we take you back to dwight eisenhower's presidential campaign. purdue university professor kathryn brownell teaches a class about political advertising in the 1950s, highlighting mr. eisenhower's campaign. she compares radio and early televised ads and examines what components made them successful. her class is about an hour, ten minutes. >> nothing perhaps captures the popular memory of the 1950s like the slogan "i like ike." this idea that this pin that so many people wore around the campaign