Dwight David Eisenhower

Birth-Death: (1890 - 1969 ) Term: (1953-1961 )

Eisenhower pushed for world peace. One of the major concerns that arose during his administration was the fear behind the "Domino Theory." SEATO was formed after Vietnam was split into North and South, designed to serve the same purpose as NATO. His insistence on peaceful negotiation continued during the Suez Crisis. Unfortunately, Eisenhower's Cold War efforts went to naught when the Soviet Government released its U2 videotape.

Foreign Events of Dwight Eisenhower

    The Domino Theory became well known during Eisenhowerıs term. The hypothesis behind the Domino theory was that once one nation fell to Communism, the others would fall like Dominoes and thus all of Asia would be under the control of the communists.

    Thus when the French fortress Dienbienphu fell to the Vietnamese communists, the United States had to interfere. At the conference in Geneva following this brief war Vietnam was split along the 17th parallel, just as Korea was split along the 38th. To restrict further Communist successes, President Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles proposed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.

    The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization was formed in 1954. A part of its charter stated that the nations would "meet in order to agree on the measures which should be taken for common defense" in case of an aggression. This alliance was disrupted by the Vietnam War and its last joint exercises were in 1976.

    The major international conflict during the Eisenhower Administration was the Suez Crisis. After the United States, Great Britain, and the International Bank withdrew their financial support from the construction of a canal in Egypt, the leader of Egypt, Nasser, nationalized the Suez canal, kicked the British out, and refused to let the Europeans supervise the canal. This was an obvious step in declaring a war on Israel and the Israelites got angry. They declared their own war and advanced as far into Egypt as the canal itself. The situation got very tense as the Russians, the French and the British all wanted to interfere. Thankfully, the UN took over and cleared the canal.

    There was one more serious confrontation during Eisenhowerıs presidency. A conference was scheduled to "thaw" the cold war between the United States and the USSR in the spring of 1960. However, only weeks before the event an American spy plane, the U2, was shot down while taking spy photos of the Soviet landscape. At first Eisenhower denied that such planes even existed, however, when the Soviet government released a videotape with the crash site of the U2 and the pilot himself, Eisenhower could not deny the truth. The summit was canceled and the Cold War was in full force again.