Laurence S. For the New Phase, the conferees proposed the establishment of a standing nuclear deterrent force. After the November election, Eisenhower left for a trip to Korea. He took along Charles E. Arthur W. Radford, who was to become JCS Chairman.
After a tour of the war theater, the group headed home aboard USS Helena. Humphrey, soon to become secretary of the treasury, came aboard at Guam.
Dulles, for his part, was in favor of building up massive strategic nuclear retaliatory power capable of striking at the sources of Communist power. This rudimentary New Look military policy evolved considerably in the summer of The Administration undertook Project Solarium, crafted by the top echelon of the Eisenhower team during a series of secretive meetings held in the White House solarium.
In June, military and civilian officials conferred at the National War College and the incoming JCS team also met to discuss policy options. In July, Eisenhower directed Wilson to get the Chiefs working on a comprehensive defense review.
This reassessment, the President emphasized, should include strategic concepts and implementing plans, roles and missions, composition of forces, readiness of forces, development of new weapons, the resulting advances in tactics, and foreign military assistance programs.
However, high-level meetings leading to the final approval of that document had been marked by contentiousness. Robert B. Carney, opposed the plan. So did the new Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Matthew B. These service leaders and others perceived the new document to be a harbinger of decreasing missions and force structures for their own services.
Eisenhower insisted that the new emphasis on strategic retaliatory power did not mean a diminution of the importance of other missions and forces, particularly those of the Army and Navy. Moreover, the President noted, the new program could not be put into place quickly. It would take time. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization now maintained sufficient strength to make a Soviet move against western Europe costly. However, the strategic retaliatory power of the United States remained the major deterrent.
This must be based on massive atomic capability including necessary bases; an integrated and effective continental defensive system; ready forces of the United States and its allies suitably deployed and adequate to deter or initially counter aggression and to discharge required initial tasks in the event of a general war; and an adequate mobilization base; all supported by the determined spirit of the US people. This stated objective posture marked a significant change from the post-World War II containment doctrine which emphasized countermoves against Soviet power at the place of aggression.
Deterrence and retaliation were at the heart of the New Look strategy, and it would hinge upon strategic nuclear weapons and continental defense. By , the Eisenhower administration was paying more than 75 percent of the French costs of the war. Yet the French were unable to defeat the Vietminh, a nationalist force under the leadership of the Communist Ho Chi Minh.
A crisis occurred in early , when Vietminh forces surrounded a French garrison at the remote location of Dienbienphu. The French asked for more than weapons: they talked about a U. Eisenhower considered the possibility of military action; indeed, he seemed prepared to authorize it under the right circumstances. Congressional leaders, however, would not provide their support unless any U.
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, however, could not persuade the British or any other major ally to take part in what he called United Action in Indochina. The President decided against an air strike, and the French garrison surrendered after weeks of brutal siege.
At an international conference in Geneva, the French government granted independence to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Eisenhower hoped to salvage a partial victory by preventing Ho Chi Minh from establishing a Communist government over all of Vietnam. In , U. Eisenhower considered the creation of South Vietnam a significant Cold War success, yet his decision to commit U. In his Farewell Address, Eisenhower concentrated not on the threats he had confronted abroad but on the dangers of the Cold War at home.
He told his fellow citizens to be wary of the "military-industrial complex," which he described as the powerful combination of "an immense military establishment and a large arms industry. Eisenhower at times had difficulty balancing means and ends in protecting national security. He authorized covert interventions into the internal affairs of other nations and provided aid to dictators in the interest of protecting "the free world.
His Farewell Address summarized principles that had guided a lifetime of service to his country. Audio of Eisenhower's Farewell Address of , in which he famously warned about the dangers of the "military industrial complex". Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A. Garfield Chester A. Roosevelt Harry S.
Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Bush Bill Clinton George W. Help inform the discussion Support the Miller Center. University of Virginia Miller Center. Eisenhower: Foreign Affairs. Breadcrumb U. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight D.
World leaders at the Geneva Summit. From left to right: Soviet Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin, U. President Dwight D. The full Council, with Eisenhower almost always in attendance, debated the policy options and made decisions, which were then sent as recommendations to the President in the form of NSC actions. Another subcommittee, the Operations Coordinating Board, made sure that the bureaucracy carried out the recommendations approved by the President.
Dulles drew a sharp line between the policy review process and day-to-day operations, which he felt were the exclusive province of the Department of State. Dulles also believed that some issues, such as covert operations, were too sensitive to be discussed by the full NSC.
Another recommendation that the committee made was that the U. If Eisenhower agreed to do so, it would mean that the defense budget would also have to increase, something that Eisenhower wanted to avoid because he wanted to keep the budget balanced without having to raise taxes or cut programs. The Gaither committee did not have access to the U-2 intelligence but Eisenhower did. The U-2 flights were revealing that the Soviets did not have the stock piles of nuclear weapons that most people in the U.
With the intelligence information that Eisenhower obtained from the U-2, he kept the increase of missiles to ICBMs and IRBMs , keeping the amount of money spent on defense down as well. He had been trying to get Congress to implement changes in defense by they had been reluctant to do so. When the committee released its report, recommending reorganization, Eisenhower quickly drew up a proposal to do so.
He wanted the troops of every branch of the military overseas to have one commander that would oversee them all instead of a commander for every branch because it would allow for better communication. This commander would report directly to the Secretary of Defense, who reported directly to the president. He wanted the Joint Chiefs of Staff JCS to answer to the Secretary of Defense instead of to their separate branches of the military and he also wanted the JCS to concentrate more on managing their respective branches instead of developing operational plans.
His proposal also included a recommendation that the government create a position for a director of defense research and technology and also a recommendation that Congress appropriate funds to the Secretary of Defense instead of the different branches of the military The Gaither report allowed Eisenhower finally to convince Congress to pass his proposal for the restructuring of the defense department and give the military continuity and the power that it had lacked in the past. Eisenhower was very important to the development of the defense department that the U.
He restructured the military so that it could communicate better with the president, making it easier for the president and those in the field to react to quickly evolving situations, and gave more power to the NSC, allowing him and future presidents to have a better forum for debate about military policy.
Works Cited. Bose, Meena. Making of Eisenhower and Kennedy. Goodpaster, Andrew J. Herken, Gregg.
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