
The Truth Is Our Weapon
The Rhetorical Diplomacy of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles
Chris Tudda(Author)
Louisiana State University Press
Will be published approx. on 30. May 2006
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-0-8071-3140-4 (ISBN)
Description
President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, deployed a tactic Chris Tudda calls ""rhetorical diplomacy""- sounding a belligerent note of anti-Communism in speeches, addresses, press conferences, and private meetings with allies and with Moscow. Yet all the while, Tudda discloses, the two were confidentially committed to a contradictory course- the establishment of a strong system of collective security in Western Europe, peaceful accommodation of the Soviet Union, and the maintenance of a new, albeit divided Germany.
Tudda explores the Eisenhower administration's pursuit of these two mutually exclusive diplomatic strategies and reveals how failure to reconcile them endangered the fragile peace of the 1950s. He builds his argument through three case studies: of the administration's badgering the French and their allies to ratify the European Defense Community, of its threat to liberate Eastern Europe from Moscow's rule, and of its forcing the issue of German reunification. By emphasizing the threat from the Soviet Union, Eisenhower and Dulles were trying to promote an activist rather than an isolationist foreign policy. But their rhetorical diplomacy intensified Cold War tensions with European allies as well as with Moscow and effectively overwhelmed the administration's true diplomatic aims.
Based on American, British, Eastern European, and Soviet primary sources- many only recently unearthed- The Truth Is Our Weapon is a major contribution to the historiography of Eisenhower's diplomacy and an important statement about the implications of public and private policy making.
Tudda explores the Eisenhower administration's pursuit of these two mutually exclusive diplomatic strategies and reveals how failure to reconcile them endangered the fragile peace of the 1950s. He builds his argument through three case studies: of the administration's badgering the French and their allies to ratify the European Defense Community, of its threat to liberate Eastern Europe from Moscow's rule, and of its forcing the issue of German reunification. By emphasizing the threat from the Soviet Union, Eisenhower and Dulles were trying to promote an activist rather than an isolationist foreign policy. But their rhetorical diplomacy intensified Cold War tensions with European allies as well as with Moscow and effectively overwhelmed the administration's true diplomatic aims.
Based on American, British, Eastern European, and Soviet primary sources- many only recently unearthed- The Truth Is Our Weapon is a major contribution to the historiography of Eisenhower's diplomacy and an important statement about the implications of public and private policy making.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Baton Rouge
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
Annotated edition
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 159 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
485 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8071-3140-4 (9780807131404)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Chris Tudda is a historian with the U.S. Department of State. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.