Cold War Diplomacy American Foreign Policy 1945 1960

Although the foreign policy decisions made by Kennedy and Johnson determined the final form of postwar diplomacy and laid the foundation for the tumultuous worldwide political changes of the last five years, until now no book has examined American diplomacy during 1960s as a whole. During his presidency, Kennedy concentrated on foreign policy. The president and his staff feared that communism had taken the offensive internationally and that the U.S. was in danger of losing the confrontation, particularly in the developing world. While Johnson attempted to focus on domestic issues, foreign issues nevertheless loomed large. Consequently, the contributors to this volume argue, all aspects of American foreign policy during that decade must be viewed through the prism of the fight against communism. The chapters, which were commissioned for this book by the editor, examine the major subjects and themes of this period in a way that provides new insight to students and general readers alike. Each chapter also contains brief notes and a bibliographic sketch.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Making use of newly-researched archival material, this collection of original essays on wartime and postwar US foreign policy re-evaluates well-known crises and documents many less familiar aspects of the nation's mid-twentieth century conflicts. Leading diplomatic historians address familiar subjects from new angles. They offer new evidence about the risks run and the costs incurred in the prosecution of the Cold War, from Korea to the Caribbean. And they provide up-to-date accounting of mid-twentieth century American diplomacy's global purposes and consequences.