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... country. Many people were sent to prisons where they perished just because they were labeled a communist with no evidence of guilt, except maybe guilt by association, and sometimes even lacking that. Two of the most controversial trials were of Alger Hiss and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Alger Hiss was former New Dealer that went with President Roosevelt to Yalta during the Peace conference. He was accused by a convicted communist Whittaker Chambers, to be operating a communist cell inside the government.
He denied the allegations or knowing Chambers, he was later found guilty of perjury when it was discovered that he did know Chambers and had affiliations with him. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. They were found to be guilty and executed in 1953. Both Hiss and Rosenberg's guilt is still being debated. The arms race was another important stage in the Cold War. It started when Dwight D Eisenhower took office.
He decided that United States defense policy needed a New Look. Stalin died in 1953 and Nikita Khrushchev called for peaceful coexistence. However this peaceful coexistence did not last long, when nationalist revolted in Hungary and wanted to take the country out of the Warsaw Pact. Khrushchev without hesitation sent Soviet tanks into Budapest. This action showed the American policy makers that the only way to restrain Soviet Union in Eastern Europe was to go to war with them. Eisenhower hoped that the cold war wasnt the only thing on his agenda and he didnt want to spend a lot on defense but he wanted to be well prepared in case he needed to be thats why he and John Foster Dulles his secretary of state decided to support the development of a hydrogen bomb and a massive nuclear arsenal.
Eisenhower's administration approved atmospheric testing in the South Pacific in some western states such as Nevada, Colorado, and Utah from which we are still seeing the effects of today. To improve the nations defenses against an air attack from Soviet Union, The administration made a commitment to develop the long range bombing capabilities of the strategic Air Command, and installed the Distant Early Warning line of radar stations in Alaska and Canada in 1958. That year both nations developed a fleet of long range intercontinental missiles call the ICBS. The arms race boosted the economy of military-industrial sectors of both nations, but it left a large portion of social programs obsolete because of the heavy investing into military resources that would soon be useless. In Vietnam the French, that controlled the south and the communist forces of Vietnam lead by Ho Chi Mihn, the Viet Mihn have been fighting along the 17 th parallel since 1946. The French were suppose to leave according to the Geneva Peace accord.
The division was suppose to be temporary with all Vietnam elections held in 1956. to unite the country. However United States feared that the communists would win because Ho Chi Mihn was very popular among the Vietnamese because he was fighting for their independence and because they would rig the elections wherever they could. According to Eisenhower's domino theory, it was essential to prevent the communist from taking power in Vietnam, or all other countries of South East Asia would fall as well.
The United States organized an anti-communist faction lead by Ngo Mihn Diem that would be the resistance to Viet Mihn and in this way the United States set up a conflict which would later cost them a lot of money, prestige and lives. The Third World was very important to both superpowers. These nations were a source of raw materials and markets. Some could provide United States with valuable military bases. During Khrushchev's regime he made several attempts to befriend Third World nations. The untied states tried to combat soviet penetration in several ways.
It offered large amounts of foreign aid to non-communist Third World countries although sometimes it went to non-democratic regimes that only got the money for being non-communist. In these years U. S. supported stable anti-communist governments no matter how repressive. The other was supporting such organizations as the CENTO (Central Treaty Organization) and SEATO. Joseph Dulles, helped organize the SEATO (South East Asia Treat Organization), which consisted of Australia, Pakistan, Thailand, New Zealand and Philippines A new agency was setup to keep an eye on the world, known as the Central Intelligence Agency.
It was involved in many covert operations and coups which helped U. S. establish a stable anticommunist government, dictatorship or not. Among these were Iran and Guatemala where the government was overthrown and CIA helped establish a new one that served the U. S. interests.
After World War II, United Nations helped Jews who had gone back to Palestine establish Israel. It divided the land previously owned by Arabs into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs. Truman immediately recognized this country alienating the Arab nations angered by this division such as Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. When Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power in 1954 in Egypt he promised to lead the Middle East out of western dependence. The Soviets promised him financial and military assistance and so did Dulles, Eisenhower's secretary of state. But Dulles wanted Nasser to terminate all negotiations with the Russians when Nasser did not agree Dulles withdrew his offer only to regret his decision when Nasser decided to nationalize the Suez Canal through which three fourths of all European oil is passed.
After several months of negotiations Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt and retook the canal. United Nations condemned their actions and forced them to give up the canal to Egypt once again. As a result of the Eisenhower convinced Congress to approve the Eisenhower Doctrine that would assist any nation in the region that required aid against aggression from any nation controlled by International Communism. The Eisenhower administration was very careful not to alienate any Middle Eastern countries that could provide the country with a steady supply of oil and this affected his foreign policy and the policy of containment. During the Truman and Eisenhower administration a policy of containment served to save the free world from communism.
But at times these two administrations put world peace on the line to prove its superiority as a nation. One cannot judge these events to being wrong or right because values of a nation and people change with time, we can just learn from these events and know that the next time United States has a contest of superiority it could cost us the world.
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Research essay sample on South East Asia Julius And Ethel Rosenberg
