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Drawing the Line
Studies the formulation of the policies of the United States government toward Eastern Asia and the beginnings of American efforts to prevent the spread of communism to Asian countries
- GenresHistory
286 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1982
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November 2, 2021
After the Pacific War ended in 1945, America's wish for Southeast Asia was that its countries be peaceful and independent, that its governments be stable, that it not be controlled by a power hostile to American interests, and that the region participate in an economic system beneficial to both itself and America. However, that wish was light years from becoming reality, as some Southeast Asian countries descended into complex civil wars and insurgencies, and most acquired active Communist movements that were believed to be controlled by the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the American government took almost no steps towards stopping the onset of Communism in the first five years after Japan's surrender.
In 1949, as Europe seemed to be on its way to recovery and China was quickly falling to the Communists, though, the Truman administration's attention began to turn East. By the end of the year, the administration decided to commit American power to containing Communism throughout the Far East by drawing a line of containment around much of China. Washington began to implement that policy by the spring of 1950, months before the outbreak of the Korean War. Its focus was Southeast Asia, and it owed its creation to the intense debate that arose in 1949 because of the failure to stop Communism in China.
The man charged with the main responsibility in shaping American policy toward China was Truman. "By late 1948, Truman had revealed himself to be a president of two distinct parts," writes the author. On one hand, he was a narrow partisan who surrounded himself with cronies and second-rate men, whom he was quick to reward and defend. On the other hand, however, he was a statesman who hired men larger than himself to advise him on international affairs. Those men were usually from elite American society, and he, probably feeling inferior to them, accepted their views without in-depth questioning. His own guiding principles in foreign policy were that world war was best avoided, the Soviet Union was trying to take over the world with the help of international Communism, and that America should not be dishonored.
At first the Truman administration's policy toward China was a double-edged sword. At one end was the prospect of good relations if China behaved according to the norms of the international community. At the other end was the threat to isolate the Communists, continue to back Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and other resistance forces, and in general make life difficult for the new regime in the hope that it would eventually collapse. The State Department, with the remarkable exception of Dean Rusk, settled on the first course, and Secretary of State Dean Acheson persuaded Truman to go along.
However, the military establishment chose the second approach. The congressional China bloc, with its ability to hinder the administration and influence the amount and uses of foreign aid funds, supported it. The Chinese lobby provided its political allies with information and innuendo, and Chinese on both sides of the conflict worked in ironic accord with each other to aggravate tensions between Washington and Beijing. Furthermore, by 1949 Americans had become used to their government's taking direct action in dealing with security threats, so when North Korea invaded South Korea policy-makers who had supported the first, mild course to that moment dumped it in an evening, without much apparent regret and with the people's full support.
The State Department had to respond with attempts to focus the attention of the American public on something else. It began studying how military aid might uphold American interests in Southeast Asia. The aid plans of economists, the analyses of regional planers, and the necessity for drawing attention away from China propelled the State Department toward involvement in Southeast Asia. While until the early fall of 1949, Acheson was unsure what to do about China, afterwards, the administration began to pursue consistently one strategy in its defense: a strong Southeast Asia policy. It consisted of dramatic public pronouncements by high-ranking administration officials about the need for decisive actions in the region, accompanied by considerable activity there.
The Truman administration was not successful in diverting the American people's attention from the Chinese drama, but that was not the main problem. The main problem was that at the time the Congress was so busy with final attempts to prevent China from succumbing to Communism it paid no attention to other parts of Asia. The administration managed to obtain money from Congress to fund its policy in Southeast Asia and launched it in the spring of 1950 without opposition, perfunctory examination, or serious comment from either congressional friends or opponents. That is how, with congressional money, the Truman administration mounted its containment policy in Southeast Asia, which would drag America first into supporting the French colonialists in the First Indochina War and from there into the Vietnamese quagmire.
DRAWING THE LINE, albeit rather dull because of its excessive focus on the fights between the State Department and the China bloc in Congress, is an important study that traces the American involvement in Vietnam to the Truman administration's attempts to gloss over its failed policy toward China with an allegedly successful Southeast Asian policy. Unlike Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who considered the possibility of taking oppressed Indochina away from the French colonialists, Truman decided to support the French because of France's importance for the recovery of post-war Europe. That decision, which Congress, distracted by China, did not dissuade the administration from, set the American government on the wrong course in Vietnam from the beginning. The damaging effects were not immediately visible, though. They would become obvious during the administrations of Truman's successors – Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson.
In 1949, as Europe seemed to be on its way to recovery and China was quickly falling to the Communists, though, the Truman administration's attention began to turn East. By the end of the year, the administration decided to commit American power to containing Communism throughout the Far East by drawing a line of containment around much of China. Washington began to implement that policy by the spring of 1950, months before the outbreak of the Korean War. Its focus was Southeast Asia, and it owed its creation to the intense debate that arose in 1949 because of the failure to stop Communism in China.
The man charged with the main responsibility in shaping American policy toward China was Truman. "By late 1948, Truman had revealed himself to be a president of two distinct parts," writes the author. On one hand, he was a narrow partisan who surrounded himself with cronies and second-rate men, whom he was quick to reward and defend. On the other hand, however, he was a statesman who hired men larger than himself to advise him on international affairs. Those men were usually from elite American society, and he, probably feeling inferior to them, accepted their views without in-depth questioning. His own guiding principles in foreign policy were that world war was best avoided, the Soviet Union was trying to take over the world with the help of international Communism, and that America should not be dishonored.
At first the Truman administration's policy toward China was a double-edged sword. At one end was the prospect of good relations if China behaved according to the norms of the international community. At the other end was the threat to isolate the Communists, continue to back Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and other resistance forces, and in general make life difficult for the new regime in the hope that it would eventually collapse. The State Department, with the remarkable exception of Dean Rusk, settled on the first course, and Secretary of State Dean Acheson persuaded Truman to go along.
However, the military establishment chose the second approach. The congressional China bloc, with its ability to hinder the administration and influence the amount and uses of foreign aid funds, supported it. The Chinese lobby provided its political allies with information and innuendo, and Chinese on both sides of the conflict worked in ironic accord with each other to aggravate tensions between Washington and Beijing. Furthermore, by 1949 Americans had become used to their government's taking direct action in dealing with security threats, so when North Korea invaded South Korea policy-makers who had supported the first, mild course to that moment dumped it in an evening, without much apparent regret and with the people's full support.
The State Department had to respond with attempts to focus the attention of the American public on something else. It began studying how military aid might uphold American interests in Southeast Asia. The aid plans of economists, the analyses of regional planers, and the necessity for drawing attention away from China propelled the State Department toward involvement in Southeast Asia. While until the early fall of 1949, Acheson was unsure what to do about China, afterwards, the administration began to pursue consistently one strategy in its defense: a strong Southeast Asia policy. It consisted of dramatic public pronouncements by high-ranking administration officials about the need for decisive actions in the region, accompanied by considerable activity there.
The Truman administration was not successful in diverting the American people's attention from the Chinese drama, but that was not the main problem. The main problem was that at the time the Congress was so busy with final attempts to prevent China from succumbing to Communism it paid no attention to other parts of Asia. The administration managed to obtain money from Congress to fund its policy in Southeast Asia and launched it in the spring of 1950 without opposition, perfunctory examination, or serious comment from either congressional friends or opponents. That is how, with congressional money, the Truman administration mounted its containment policy in Southeast Asia, which would drag America first into supporting the French colonialists in the First Indochina War and from there into the Vietnamese quagmire.
DRAWING THE LINE, albeit rather dull because of its excessive focus on the fights between the State Department and the China bloc in Congress, is an important study that traces the American involvement in Vietnam to the Truman administration's attempts to gloss over its failed policy toward China with an allegedly successful Southeast Asian policy. Unlike Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who considered the possibility of taking oppressed Indochina away from the French colonialists, Truman decided to support the French because of France's importance for the recovery of post-war Europe. That decision, which Congress, distracted by China, did not dissuade the administration from, set the American government on the wrong course in Vietnam from the beginning. The damaging effects were not immediately visible, though. They would become obvious during the administrations of Truman's successors – Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson.
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