The Truman Administration and Non-use of the Atomic Bomb During the Korean War, June 1950 to January 1953

<p>This thesis examines the Truman administration's non-use of nuclear weapons during the Korean War, June 1950 to January 1953. It investigates the entirety of the Truman administration's experience of the Korean War, rather than focusing on certain key periods. By examining official documentation, memoirs, newspaper reports, and information about public opinion, this thesis explains why the Truman administration chose not to utilise the atomic arsenal. It examines the opinions and influence of significant decision makers such as President Harry S. Truman, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and Director of the Policy Planning Staff Paul H. Nitze. Truman, as president and ultimate decision maker, will be paid special attention, not least on account of his unique experience of having ordered the atomic attacks on Japan in 1945. This thesis also looks into the position of high-ranking military officers, such as General Omar N. Bradley, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, and General Matthew B. Ridgway. In order to explain non-use, this thesis also investigates the influence of foreign allies and foreign opinion, particularly that expressed by the United Kingdom, the United States' most important ally. The role of public opinion within the United States is also considered. By examining in detail all of these factors and building a composite picture of the forces acting upon the administration, this thesis provides a more rounded and nuanced view of non-use by the Truman administration during the Korean War than that offered by the existing scholarship. It demonstrates that non-use was always a complex and problematic matter.</p>

The Truman Administration and Non-use of the Atomic Bomb During the Korean War, June 1950 to January 1953

<p>This thesis examines the Truman administration's non-use of nuclear weapons during the Korean War, June 1950 to January 1953. It investigates the entirety of the Truman administration's experience of the Korean War, rather than focusing on certain key periods. By examining official documentation, memoirs, newspaper reports, and information about public opinion, this thesis explains why the Truman administration chose not to utilise the atomic arsenal. It examines the opinions and influence of significant decision makers such as President Harry S. Truman, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and Director of the Policy Planning Staff Paul H. Nitze. Truman, as president and ultimate decision maker, will be paid special attention, not least on account of his unique experience of having ordered the atomic attacks on Japan in 1945. This thesis also looks into the position of high-ranking military officers, such as General Omar N. Bradley, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, and General Matthew B. Ridgway. In order to explain non-use, this thesis also investigates the influence of foreign allies and foreign opinion, particularly that expressed by the United Kingdom, the United States' most important ally. The role of public opinion within the United States is also considered. By examining in detail all of these factors and building a composite picture of the forces acting upon the administration, this thesis provides a more rounded and nuanced view of non-use by the Truman administration during the Korean War than that offered by the existing scholarship. It demonstrates that non-use was always a complex and problematic matter.</p>

An unfinished battle: George C. Marshall and intelligence in the early Cold War

This article deals with the influence of Gen. George C. Marshall on the foundation of the US intelligence community after the Second World War. It argues that his uneven achievements demonstrate how the ceaseless wrangling within the Truman administration undermined the crafting of a coherent intelligence policy. Despite his bureaucratic skills and prominent positions, Marshall struggled to achieve his ends on matters like signals intelligence, covert action, or relations between the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. Yet he crafted an enduring vision of how intelligence should supplement US national security policy that remained potent throughout the Cold War and beyond.

The U.S. State Department's Opposition to Zionist Aspirations during the Early Cold War

In the latter half of the 1940s, senior U.S. national security officials opposed Zionist aspirations for an independent state and sought to keep the Truman administration from actively facilitating that effort. Even though President Harry Truman himself expressed strong public backing for the new state of Israel, the reality, as recognized at the time by Israel's leaders and by prominent U.S. liberal political leaders and journalists, was that the United States was less firm, less consistent, and less consequential in supporting the establishment of the state of Israel than were the Soviet Union and the Communist states of Eastern Europe, especially Czechoslovakia and Poland. The situation that existed in 1947--1948, with significant U.S. government opposition and Soviet-bloc support for Israel, is evident from declassified files of the U.S. State Department and public records of the United Nations (UN).

The Development of CIA Covert Action

The chapter considers how the CIA developed its covert action capabilities. it begins with a discussion of the centrality of OSS figures to the early character and shape of the Agency. It also considers how the dominant political personalities of the Truman administration impacted on the CIA’s development and deployment of it covert actions. It illustrates how inter-departmental rivalries were rife, but how by the end of the Truman administration, covert action was formally centralised and lead by the CIA. Document: NSC 5412/2.

Asia, 1945-1954: Three Wars in One.

The conflicts waged in Asia between 1945 and 1954 are examined here as part of the anti-colonial struggle and national independence, giving rise to free and original Asian practices. The background is the emergence and consolidation of the bipolar powers of the superpowers involved in the cold war. The decolonization of the region was part of the Western Allies' ideals. However, the Cold Conflict's political conveniences lead the Truman Administration to tolerate and support the colonial presence. American policy on Asia-Pacific feared that independence would jeopardize regional stability. This desideratum frustrated the aspirations of the local populations and elites and the communists. After 1949 starting its huge task of national reconstruction, the People's Republic of China recovered imperial diplomatic practices. In addition to expanding his agricultural and industrial production bases, he supported the communist side in the war between the two Koreas and Vietminh, in Indochina. Exercising dominance over its allies the Maoist China, it consolidated its regional projection, suggesting to several important actors on the western side that the three conflicts were part of a single war against communism that they believed to be expanding.

A Negotiated Alliance

This chapter examines the Australia, New Zealand, and United States Security Treaty (ANZUS). United States policymakers increasingly recognized the importance of Japan in the Cold War. Indeed, the Truman administration concluded that the recovery of Japan was strategically and economically essential for the security of the Asia-Pacific region. Imperative to achieving such ambitions was ending formal occupation by Allied forces and providing a Japanese peace treaty that would allow for its full economic and industrial recovery. However, U.S. plans encountered considerable opposition. The United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand resented a new commercial challenger in the region and feared a Japanese military revival. As all were signatories to the Japanese instruments of surrender, their support was essential to secure the two-thirds majority required to end formal occupation. The United States' desire for a Japanese peace treaty provided Australia and New Zealand with the opportunity to push for their longtime goal of a security treaty with the United States. Following negotiations, the ANZUS Treaty emerged in February of 1951. The United States, however, excluded the United Kingdom from this newly formed security pact. Washington also brushed aside London's efforts at drafting its own Japanese peace treaty, instead pushing forward a more lenient agreement that largely reflected U.S. wishes.

Unconditional Surrender and the American Case Against the Modification of a Controversial Policy (1943–1945)

The decision to employ nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 is arguably one of the most thoroughly investigated subjects in American history. Notably revisionist historians have repeatedly faulted the Truman administration for too easily discarding alternative options, arguing that a simple guarantee to retain the Japanese Emperor would have sufficed to make the Japanese government lay down arms almost immediately. In contrast to that position, the present article, however, maintains that American authorities did indeed have legitimate grounds not to expect that such concessions would in any way lead to a swift conclusion of the Pacific War, particularly since regardless of the Emperor issue there still remained the question of the appropriate moment and manner in which to exact a full surrender from the Imperial Army itself by decisively breaking its considerable military and political clout.

U.S. Perceptions of the Communist Threat in Iran during the Mossadegh Era

Most studies of the coup d’état in Iran in August 1953—a coup backed by U.S. and British intelligence agencies—attribute it at least partly to U.S. concerns about the threat of a Communist takeover in Iran. This article examines the evidence available to U.S. officials about the nature of the Communist threat in Iran prior to the coup, in the form of reports, analyses, and policy papers written on this subject at the time by U.S. officials. The documentation reveals that U.S. policymakers did not have compelling evidence that the threat of a Communist takeover was increasing substantially in the months before the coup. Rather, the Eisenhower administration interpreted the available evidence in a more alarming manner than the Truman administration had. The coup the administration undertook in response was therefore premature, at best.