Containment to Liberation:
The Truman administration supported the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek against the Communist leader Mao Zedong in the Chinese Civil War when it resumed after WWII. The war had begun in the 1920s when Chiang turned on Mao after they had worked together to reunite China after it had been divided up by warlords. Chiang massacred the Communist and caused Mao to flee to the countryside, and then he set up the Nanking Republic. Chiang was a dictator and not a democratic leader, notwithstanding the title of his government. Chiang and Mao would fight a Civil War, on and off, until 1937 when they formed a coalition against Japan after the Japanese invasion, starting WWII. Once the Japanese were defeated, the Civil War resumed. Mao remained the more popular and effective leader and won against Chiang's Nationalists, even though Chiang was supported by the United States. The United States had supported both leaders during WWII, but sided with Chiang against Mao after the war because Mao was a Communist. Mao's victory became known as the "fall of China" in the United States. The U.S.'s containment policy seemed to have failed to contain the spread of Communism.
The Truman administration supported the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek against the Communist leader Mao Zedong in the Chinese Civil War when it resumed after WWII. The war had begun in the 1920s when Chiang turned on Mao after they had worked together to reunite China after it had been divided up by warlords. Chiang massacred the Communist and caused Mao to flee to the countryside, and then he set up the Nanking Republic. Chiang was a dictator and not a democratic leader, notwithstanding the title of his government. Chiang and Mao would fight a Civil War, on and off, until 1937 when they formed a coalition against Japan after the Japanese invasion, starting WWII. Once the Japanese were defeated, the Civil War resumed. Mao remained the more popular and effective leader and won against Chiang's Nationalists, even though Chiang was supported by the United States. The United States had supported both leaders during WWII, but sided with Chiang against Mao after the war because Mao was a Communist. Mao's victory became known as the "fall of China" in the United States. The U.S.'s containment policy seemed to have failed to contain the spread of Communism.
The "fall of China," along with the Soviet's successful testing of an atomic bomb, influenced U.S. domestic and foreign policies. Domestically, the Second Red Scare dominated the political and social atmosphere of the 1950s. In foreign affairs, Paul H. Nitze drafted NSC 68 -- the National Security Council's 68th document. The NSC had been created a few years earlier to help orchestrate the containment of the Soviet Union. NSC-68 influenced U.S. Cold War foreign policy toward a more militaristic focus than that proposed by Kennan in the Long Telegram.
Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower, elected in 1952, took office in 1953, and his administration would chart a more active foreign policy, which was largely kept out of sight of the American public. Eisenhower's Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his CIA head Allan Dulles orchestrated a behind-the-scenes policy based on the Dulles' view of the world in black and white terms.
Listen to or read the transcript:
Stephen Kinzer, Interviewed by Terry Gross, “Meet ‘The Brothers’ who Shaped U.S. Policy, Inside and Out,” Fresh Air, NPR, October 16, 2013. http://www.npr.org/2013/10/16/234752747/meet-the-brothers-who-shaped-u-s-policy-inside-and-out
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