In 1946, British leader Winston Churchill insisted that he held “a strong admiration” for the Russian People and their leader Joseph Stalin. The former Prime Minister quickly pivoted, though and, while pointing at geography, quickly announced the presence of an “iron curtain” across the European continent. He observed an explosive presence of communist “fifth columns” or parties throughout Eastern Europe, whereby Churchill then proposed “a settlement” between Soviet Russia and Western democracies. Such a settlement, warned Churchill, must come from a position strength, of unity, and urged “the English-speaking world and all its connections” to unite by way of the newly formed United Nations to bring “an overwhelming assurance of security” to counter Soviet communist aggression.[1] Stalin retorted, claiming that Churchill’s speech mirrored Hitler’s racial theories. From the Soviet perspective, Churchill and Hitler were guilty of racist imperialism. Where Hitler spoke of a dominant Aryan race, the former British Prime Minister insisted that “only nations speaking the English language” were to be called upon to “decide the destinies of the entire world.” [2] The Cold War was on.
Secretary of State George C. Marshall’s plan for the United States “to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world” must be placed in this developing Cold War context. In Marshall’s plan to tackle prevalent “hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos” which followed in the wake of World War II, capitalism was at stake. Marshall wanted to resuscitate “the entire fabric of European economy.” Governments that blocked such efforts, perhaps a nod toward the Soviets, “will encounter the opposition of the United States.” Thus, while Marshall viewed his plan as “friendly” and beneficent, in the end – because of Soviet opposition – only Western European states benefitted from America’s aid.[3]
Meanwhile, in Asia, Truman viewed the sudden invasion of South Korea as a rise in communist aggression; “communism has passed beyond,” declared the President, “and will now use armed invasion” to achieve their ends. Truman responded by ordering the “7th Fleet to prevent any attack on Formosa [Taiwan],” directing “forces in the Philippines be strengthened,” and supplying “military assistance” to France as they attempted to re-colonize “the Associated States in Indochina.”[4]
As tensions rose between East and West, “the development of weapons of mass destruction” took astounding technological leaps. In 1955, the detonation of Castle Bravo, an American thermonuclear bomb, had released so much energy and radiation that it prompted the world’s leading physicists, Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein to make appeals “as human beings, to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.”[5]
"1957 Sightseeing of Moscow by Chernomordik A." by Keijo K. Knutas is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
Fear of such weapons also infiltrated the world community, not just the scientific one. This was indeed the message from smaller countries, particularly those that were colonies or seeking ways to gain their independence from European powers. Indonesia’s leader, Sukarno, mused about humanity’s ability to “release the immense forces locked in the smallest particles of matter,” and wondered if the “political skill of man” was up to meeting the challenge of science. Man’s warlike nature, according to Sukarno, necessitated limits. At the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia, Sukarno assured newly independent nations upon the African and Asian continents that they were needed to “inject the voice of reason into world affairs.”[6]
India, long under the yoke the British Empire, achieved independence in 1947. It’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru also spoke of humankind’s technological achievements in a visit to Washington D.C. in 1956. “Peace” in the atomic age, he claimed, has “become a test of human survival.” Nehru told the President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, that he chose “nonalignment,” rather than align within any communist vs capitalist dictate. India’s nonalignment and independence was “a positive and dynamic approach” to the nuclear brinkmanship between East and West, he claimed. Like Sukarno, Nehru refused to be colonized by Cold War ideologies. Like Indonesia, India would approach their contacts with other nations so that “each will learn from the other…”[7]
Anwar Sadat, in a 1957 People’s Conference in Cairo, reiterated Sukarno’s and Nehru’s call of nonalignment in the face of nuclear annihilation.
But a World War, once it breaks out with its nuclear weapons and hydrogen bombs, will unquestionably annihilate mankind and destroy forever our existing civilization. As a section of humanity, which has been treacherously attacked by imperialistic States, we demand that atomic experiments should be abolished, and that manufacture and use of nuclear weapons should be prohibited.[8]
Sadat reinforced earlier calls for an “Afro-Asian Solidarity,” one that would lift the “still trodden under the heel of imperialism” thus linking the two issues: Cold war on the one hand and anti-imperialism on the other. “We cannot live peacefully in a world threatened by the shadow of war,” argued Sadat, who demanded “that atomic experiments should be abolished, and that manufacture and use of nuclear weapons should be prohibited.”[9]
But events in Egypt changed and they drew President Dwight D. Eisenhower to draw up a new doctrine based upon the region. Israel, followed by France and England, invaded Egypt over the Suez Canal in 1956. Eisenhower pointed out that “the area has been often troubled” with a “high degree of instability.” This much was true. Egypt, freed from the yoke of the Ottomans after the First World War, was not free from European debt and, in fact, did not own the Suez Canal which ran through the center of its territory. But in 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Nassar nationalized the canal canceling any debt to Western Powers. Israel, then France and the United Kingdom, invaded. Eisenhower suspected that Soviets were responsible for Nassar’s decision, a pure play of “power politics” and “of Communizing the World.” Eisenhower, like Marshall before him, viewed in America’s ability to develop and maintain a region’s “economic strength,” against possible “Communist armed aggression.”[10]
The Cold War between the communist east and the capitalist west involved nations struggling to declare themselves independent from previous European colonizers. Egypt, India, Indonesia, and others were targeted by both the East and the West to choose sides. All three newly independent nations attempted to strike out on their own and act as moral barometers to the developing Cold War between Soviets and Americans armed to the teeth with nukes.
Cover Image: "1960 The way for man is open!" by Keijo K. Knutas is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
[1] Winston Churchill, “Iron Curtain Speech, March 5, 1946,” Fordham University, “Modern History Sourcebook”, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/churchill-iron.asp
[2] “Stalin's Reply to Churchill,” March 14, 1946 (interview with Pravda), The New York Times, 4. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1946stalin.asp
[3] George C. Marshall, “The Marshall Plan Speech,” NATO International, https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1947/s470605a_e.htm
[4] “Statement by the President, Truman on Korea,” June 27, 1950, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Public Papers of the Presidents, Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953.
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116192
[5] “The Russell-Einsten Manifesto,” Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, https://pugwash.org/1955/07/09/statement-manifesto/
[6] Sukarno, “Speech at the Opening of the Bandung Conference,” Fordham University, “Modern History Sourcebook,” https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/1955sukarno-bandong.asp
[7] “Nehru Speech” (December 18, 1956), printed in the U.S. Department of State Bulletin, January 14, 1957, pp. 4950. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/1941nehru.asp
[8] The First Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Conference, 26 December 1957 to January 1, 1958, 2nd edition (Cairo: The Permanent Secretariat of the Organization for Afro-Asian People's Solidarity, 1958), pp. 7-12.
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/1957sadat-afroasian1.asp
[9] ibid.
[10] “The Eisenhower Doctrine in the Middle East: A Message to Congress, 1957” in The National Security Doctrines of the American Presidency: How They Shape Our Present and Future, vol. 2 (Santa Barbara, CA: 2012), 563-7.