Eisenhower and the Cold War

by Robert A. Divine

Argues that Eisenhower was a stronger president than previously believed and was responsible for many important accomplishments in the area of foreign policy and the quest for peace

Genres: History

192 pages, Hardcover

First published March 26, 1981

About the author

Robert A. Divine joined the faculty of the University of Texas in 1954 as a professor of history. He served as Chairman of the Department of History and the Committee on International Studies, and a member of the interim committee that helped with the organization of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University. In addition, he served as president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and authored eleven books. He retired in 1996.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robert Divine's work on President Dwight Eisenhower's foreign policy provides a compact and readable introduction to the topic. Divine is a "revisionist" in that he attacks the orthodoxy which portrays Dwight Eisenhower as a lazy golfer who left the formulation of foreign policy to his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. In place of this conventional image he substitutes a highly attractive portrait of Eisenhower as a moderate and cautious president who retained control of foreign policy formulation at all important junctures.

The success with which Divine credits Eisenhower in U.S. relations with Asia, the Middle East, and the Soviet Union bears testimony to the fact that revisionism is not inherently critical of its subject matter. In fact, Divine goes beyond simply praising Eisenhower's foreign policy and adopts the "Verstehend" approach of German historicism in that he seems to share many of the same Cold War assumptions which delimited the range and substance of debates in the 1950s over U.S.-Soviet policy. The problem with this book is that Divine's Soviets are the same evil stick figures as they were for policy-makers in the 1950s.

The Soviets may well have been evil, but Divine spends no time demonstrating this. Leaving out an analysis of the Soviet position is a major weakness in his approach since the Soviets serve as foils against which the American hero Eisenhower is developed. Chiding Ike mildly for fuzzy-headed idealism, for instance, he notes sadly that:

"Ike's pursuit of peace was the dominant feature of his presidency, and the failure to secure it his greatest disappointment. This quest was flawed by Eisenhower's uncritical assumption that the Cold War was the result of Russian fear and hostility. He believed that all he had to do was to convince the men in the Kremlin that the United states was not out to encircle or destroy the Soviet Union. Hoping to gain their trust [which for Divine was neither wise, nor perhaps even possible], he believed he could reverse their belligerence and persuade them to accept western solutions •••" (p. 105)

Divine merely assumes that his reader believes along with him that the Soviets were cynics, the Americans sincere idealists.

There are many other examples in the book of this Manichean dualism. Examining his use of language it becomes apparent that for Divine, as for American foreign policy makers in the 1950s, the Soviets were "Russians" who were devotees of "Communism" with a big "C." If he did not want to give the impression that he believes the Soviets to have been inherently aggressive, expansionist, and untrustworthy he should not have plucked this terminology from the early Cold War years. Yet there is plenty of further evidence that this is exactly the impression he wished to convey.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides an interesting perspective on Eisenhower. Divine argues that Ike was a better president than his reputation. In the preface he admits that Eisenhower accomplished little in his domestic policy…his expertise and interests lay primarily in the incredibly dangerous world caught between the Soviets and the west. He portrays Eisenhower as a shrewd politician who guarded his thoughts so as to provide flexibility on his position. The best and most convincing statement of this skill in his dealing with the Chinese with modest threats of nuclear war, but in such a way that “perhaps the best testimony to the shrewdness of the President’s policy is the impossibility of telling even now whether or not he was bluffing” (31). He managed the crisis developing in Indochina without committing the United States to war…a policy his successors unfortunately did not follow. His warnings are best summarized by Admiral A.C. Davis, who warned that partial war was not an option, as “one cannot go over Niagara Falls in a barrel only slightly.” (50) He also effectively used others to control his policy directives in a very hands on way. As an overview that presents an argument, this is an interesting book. Divine best summarizes Eisenhower’s success with the statement that “there is great irony in the fact that Eisenhower, the man hailed as the savior of Western Europe in World War II, would become the president who extended American power and influence globally at the expense of England and France.” (96). Of his failures, he fairly treats Eisenhower by stating that, “if at times he confused the danger from Arab nationalism with that from Soviet communism, at least he had a clear sense of the strategic value of Persian Gulf oil and acted boldly to protect that vital national interest.” (104) Unfortunately, the narrative is a bit confused in that it is neither a comprehensive treatment, or a scholarly piece of revisionist history…it is somewhat caught in the middle. Still, for those who have a cursory knowledge of Eisenhower and are interested in his personal approach to the presidency and the dangers of the newly atomic world, this is an interesting study.

[Michael Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book whose author is a member of the school of thought which sees Eisenhower as an engaged and "hands on" president. This is a good book to become acquainted with the Eisenhower portion of the Cold War, but is not meant to be comprehensive.