964 ★ CHAPTER 24 An Affluent Societyouster of both governments—a clear
violation of the UN Charter, which
barred a member state from taking mil-
itary action against another except in
self-defense.
In 1956, Israel, France, and Britain—
without prior consultation with the
United States—invaded Egypt after
the country’s nationalist leader, Gamal
Abdel Nasser, nationalized the Suez
Canal, jointly owned by Britain and
France. A furious Eisenhower forced
them to abandon the invasion. After the
Suez fiasco, the United States moved to
replace Britain as the major Western
power in the Middle East, and American
companies increasingly dominated the
region’s oil fields. In 1957, Eisenhower
extended the principle of containment
to the region, issuing the Eisenhower
Doctrine, which pledged the United States to defend Middle Eastern govern-
ments threatened by communism or Arab nationalism. A year later, Ike dis-
patched 5,000 American troops to Lebanon to protect a government dominated
by pro-Western Christians against Nasser’s effort to bring all Arab states into a
single regime under his rule.Origins of the Vietnam War
In Vietnam, the expulsion of the Japanese in 1945 led not to independence but
to a French military effort to preserve their Asian empire, which dated to the
late nineteenth century, against Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist forces. Anticommu-
nism led the United States into deeper and deeper involvement. Following a
policy initiated by Truman, the Eisenhower administration funneled billions
of dollars in aid to bolster French efforts. By the early 1950s, the United States
was paying four-fifths of the cost of the war. Wary of becoming bogged down
in another land war in Asia immediately after Korea, however, Ike declined to
send in American troops when France requested them to avert defeat in 1954.
He also rejected the National Security Council’s advice to use nuclear weapons,
leaving France no alternative but to agree to Vietnamese independence.
Issued from a peace conference in 1954, the Geneva Accords divided Viet-
nam temporarily into northern and southern districts, with elections scheduledThe military junta installed in Guatemala by the
CIA in 1954 enters Guatemala City in a Jeep
driven by CIA agent Carlos Castillo Armas.
Although hailed by the Eisenhower administration
as a triumph for freedom, the new government
suppressed democracy in Guatemala and
embarked on a murderous campaign to stamp
out opposition.