> I was reading William Appleman Williams' _Empire as a Way of
> Life_ and Ike figures into his narrative in much the same way--as >
someone who saw the problems developing but didn't quite have > the
charisma to turn the tide. I don't have the citation here, but > it is
an interesting take on that period. Not having been alive
> then (or, honestly, read all that much about Ike) is this a really
> unfair characterization?
When you see attempts to fumigate Eisenhower, remember that he was the president who (just as starters) (a) offered the A-Bomb to the French to use in Vietnam, (b) ordered the murder of Patrice Lumumba, (c) ordered the overthrow of Arbenz, and (d) ordered the overthrow of Mossadegh. I would assume that those remarks in his 'farewell address' were from the point of view of maintaining a more effective imperial military force, free from external corruption. Carrol <<<<<>>>>>
eisenhower's reference to *military-industrial complex* in his 'farewell address' is part of **time-honored** tradition in u.s. for officials to ostensibly lament what they were part of/responsible for...recall mcnamara crying about poor, starving children when he left as head of the world bank *and* rickover fretting about dangers of the nuclear navy when he left joint chiefs of staff...
re. eisenhower and foreign policy, there were fiscal conservatives in his administration who believed that long-term, big-time military spending would have negative economic consequences such as persistent unbalanced budgets that would lead to increased taxes and/or inflationary deficit spending, impede economic growth and impaired economic efficiency...
eisenhower shifted military policy towards continual development of new weapons systems and reliance upon nuclear weapons, in particular, thus, his important role in emergence of 'military industrial' complex...
eisenhower's nuclear strategy was supplemented by covert operations, especially in the third world - see carrol's above examples, also egypt & cuba - where he also dramatically increased military assistance to authoritarian, repressive allies of the u.s. government...
eisenhower articulated (well, he was the first to publicly use the phrase, he wasn't really articulate about anything) the *domino theory* about the time arbenz was overthrown and the french were extricating themselves from vietnam, the u.s. was paying about 80% of the french war effort by then...
eisenhower's *doctrine* extended the monroe and truman policies to the middle east, as was the case in most such instances of u.s. 'aid', there were no particularly humanitarian motives here, rather the strategy was rooted in u.s. interest in/need to maintain access to oil, in the first *test* of this doctrine, eisenhower deployed about 15,000 u.s. troops to lebanon when that country's president claimed that egypt's nasser (whom eisenhower called a 'dangerous fanatic' with 'ambitious pretensions') was trying to overthrow him...
in sum, eisenhower's foreign policy was intended to prevent national liberation while promoting u.s. corporate transnationalism, nothing novel, no surprises there... mh
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