750 Chapter 28 Collision Courses, Abroad and at Home: 1946–1960
effectiveness of his social welfare measures—an exten-
sion of Social Security—but on balance, he proved to
be an excellent politician. He knew how to be flexible
without compromising his basic values. His “conser-
vatism” became first “dynamic conservatism” and
then “progressive moderation.” He summarized his
attitude by saying, “In all those things that deal with
people, be liberal, be human.”
Yet his policies toward illegal Mexican immi-
grants and native Americans proved less than
humane. In 1954 he authorized Operation Wetback,
which rounded up and deported nearly a million ille-
gal Mexican immigrants. He also sought to weaken
New Deal policies that strengthened Native American
tribes as political entities. Indian leaders resisted this
change, and the policy ended in 1961.
The Eisenhower-Dulles Foreign Policy
The American people, troubled and uncertain over
the stalemate in Korea, counted on Eisenhower to
find a way to employ the nation’s immense strength
constructively. The new president shared the general
feeling that a change of tactics in foreign affairs was
needed. He counted on his secretary of state to solve
the practical problems.
His choice, John Foster Dulles, was a lawyer with
considerable diplomatic experience. He had been an
outspoken critic of Truman’s policy of containment. In
a May 1952 article in Life entitled “A Policy of
Boldness,” he argued that global military containment
was both expensive and ineffective: “We cannot build a
20,000-mile Maginot Line or match the Red armies
man for man, gun for gun, and tank for tank at any par-
ticular time or place their general staff selects.” Instead
of waiting for the communist powers to make a move
and then “containing” them, the United States would
build so many powerful nuclear weapons that the
Soviet Union or communist China wouldn’t dare take
provocative actions. An immense arsenal of nuclear
bombs, loaded on the nation’s formidable fleet of
bombers, would ensure amassive retaliationagainst
any aggressor. Such a “new look” military would be
cheaper to maintain than a large standing army, and it
would prevent the United States from being caught up
in “local” conflicts like the Korean War.
Korea offered the first test of his views. After
Eisenhower’s post-election trip to Korea failed to
bring an end to the war, Dulles signaled his willingness
to use tactical nuclear weapons in Korea by showily
transferring nuclear warheads from the United States
mainland to bomber units stationed in East Asia. He
also issued a calculatedly vague warning about tough
new measures. Several weeks later, in July 1953, the
Chinese signed an armistice that ended hostilities but
left Korea divided. The administration interpreted the
softening of the Chinese position as proof that the
nuclear threat had worked. (Dulles was apparently
mistaken about the effectiveness of his nuclear threat.
In recent years, Chinese officials have said that they
were unaware that Eisenhower and Dulles were con-
sidering use of nuclear bombs to end the Korean War.)
Emboldened by his apparent triumph, Dulles
again brandished the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Chiang
Kai-shek had stationed 90,000 soldiers—one-third of
his army—in Quemoy and Matsu, two small islands
located a few miles from mainland China. In 1954 the
Chinese communists began shelling the islands, pre-
sumably in preparation to invade them. Chiang
appealed for American protection, warning that loss of
the islands would bring about the collapse of
Nationalist China. Dulles concurred that the conse-
quences throughout East Asia would be “cata-
strophic.” At a press conference in 1955 Eisenhower
announced his willingness to use nuclear weapons to
defend the islands, “just exactly as you would use a
bullet or anything else.” The Chinese communists
backed down.An eleven-megaton hyrdrogen bomb is detonated over Bikini Atoll in
March 1954. One megaton had the explosive power of 1 million tons
of TNT. (The bomb that had destroyed Hiroshima had the equivalent
of 12,500 tons of TNT.) An earlier atom bomb test at Bikini Island
prompted a French fashion designer to give the name “bikini” to his
explosively provocative bathing suit.