Dwight Eisenhower on Foreign Policy

OpEd: Organized Bay of Pigs invasion that JFK carried out

The young and untried Kennedy decreed the blockade [against Cuba] and the Bay of Pigs invasion, organized by Eisenhower and by Nixon who knew less about war than he did. An unexpected twist of fate led him to new and unwise decisions that led to the October Missile Crisis from which he nevertheless emerged gracefully. But he remained traumatized by the prospect of a nuclear war.

Opposed Israeli settlements in disputed areas

Israeli plans to retain far-reaching West Bank settlements will likely spell the death knell for prospects for the "road map for peace," the keystone of President George W. Bush's Middle East policy.

1956: People-to-People program, a step toward world peace

I had long advocated--and still advocate today--this kind of direct people-to-people exchange as one fine, progressive step toward peace in the world. In 1956 I initiated a broad-scale People-to-People program--an effort to stimulate private citizens in many fields (the arts, education, athletics, law, medicine, business) to organize themselves to reach across the seas and national boundaries to their counterparts in other lands.

Arm Egypt on promise of never accepting Soviet aid

Beyond this, however, are the constructive things that we can do once these nations understand the truth of the immediately preceding paragraph. For example, we can provide Egypt with an agreed-upon amount of arms--sufficient to maintain internal order and a reasonable defense of its borders, in return for an agreement that it will never accept any Soviet offer.

Presidential "prestige" is unimportant; visit every nation

"I get a little bit weary," I observed, "about people who say, 'Well, this would be a terrible blow to presidential prestige,' or any other prestige. We are talking about the human race and what's going to happen to it."

US aid for raising living standards & resisting Communism

I said that all should understand, however, that our resources were limited, that other industrialized nations should help shoulder a portion of the costs, and that all of us should cooperate closely to maximize security and progress and to minimize expense. Only in this way could real results be achieved in the long run.

Many Arab actions are inspired by hatred of every Jew

Many of the Arab actions seemed to be inspired by nothing more than hatred of every Jew, merely because he was a Jew. In negotiations for landing rights in Saudi Arabia for American military personnel, one of the conditions imposed by the Saudi government was that no Jew could be allowed on the field. No Arab government would recognize Israel; the Egyptian government would allow no Israeli ship to go through the Suez Canal. The Arabs found many ways to infuriate citizens of Israel and Jews throughout the world, and as a result, the King of Saudi Arabia was, in Jewish eyes, a symbol of Arab injustice and cruelty.

However, I was convinced of the truth of the adage that in most quarrels of this type neither side is either wholly at fault and neither equally blameless.

Replace Latin America non-intervention with ending feudalism

Thus was launched a new program for inter-American cooperation which the succeeding administration enthusiastically carried on, giving it a bright and dramatic new label. In 1961, Pres. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress carries forward the progressive departure from the traditional American doctrine which we began as early as 1957 and carried on intensively upon my return from Latin America. In my judgment the basic concepts and the agreements in the Act of Bogota are right. Whether the noble purposes proclaimed there will be realized, only the Latin American nations themselves can determine.

1960: Led UN effort for education in Africa

1. A pledge by all countries to respect the African peoples' rights to choose their own way of life and to determine for themselves the course they chose to follow.
2. The UN should be prepared to help the African countries maintain their security without wasteful and dangerous competition in armaments.
3. We should all support the UN response to emergency needs.
4. The UN should help newly developed African countries shape their long-term modernization programs.
5. An all-out UN effort to help African countries to launch such educational activities as they may wish to undertake.

The world has shrunk; interests now interdependent worldwide

1. America's vital interests are world-wide, embracing both hemispheres and every continent.
2. We have community of interest with every nation in the free world.
3. Interdependence of interests requires a decent respect for the rights and the peace of all peoples.

May we at home, in all the cities & farmlands of America, support these principles in a personal effort of dedication. Thereby each of us can help establish a secure world order in which opportunity for freedom and justice will be more widespread, and in which the resources now dissipated on the armaments of war can be released for the life and growth of all humanity.

Mutual security means mutual cooperation against Communism

1. Our foreign policy must be clear, consistent, and confident.
2. The policy we embrace must be a coherent global policy.
3. Our policy, dedicated to making the free world secure, will envision all peaceful methods and devices--except breaking faith with our friends.
4. The policy we pursue will recognize the truth that no single country, even one so powerful as ours, can alone defend the liberty of all nations threatened by Communist aggression from without or subversion within. Mutual security means effective mutual cooperation.
5. Our policy will be designed to foster the advent of practical unity in Western Europe.