Sheldon Richman on the Eisenhower Doctine and 1958 Lebanon Invasion

The United States was determined to not let its preeminence in the Middle East be challenged--by anyone--again.  Early in 1957 Eisenhower delivered a message to Congress in which he referred to the instability in the region being "heightened and, at times, manipulated by International Communism"--that is, the Soviet Union, he added obligatorily.  Accordingly, he proposed a program of economic aid, military assistance, and cooperation and the use of U.S. troops, when requested, "against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by International Communism."  That was the Eisenhower Doctrine, which Congress ultimately approved and for which it authorized the spending of up to $200 million.  Twelve of 15 Middle Eastern states approached by the administration accepted the doctrine. Initially hesitant, Israel also accepted it.  However, only Lebanon formally endorsed the Eisenhower Doctrine, in return for promises of military and economic aid.

Not everyone in the U.S. government understood the logic of the doctrine.  Wilber Crane Eveland of the CIA later recounted his reaction:

I was shocked. Who, I wondered, had reached this determination of what the Arabs considered a danger? Israel's army had just invaded Egypt and still occupied all of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. And, had it not been for Russia's threat to intervene on behalf of the Egyptians, the British, French, and Israeli forces might now be sitting in Cairo, celebrating Nasser's ignominious fall from power.

Eveland's reaction was not unusual.  Many people believed that the Arabs did not rank the Soviet Union as their number-one threat. According to Eveland, when Eisenhower dispatched an envoy to sound out the Arab countries, Egypt, Syria, and some North African states said they saw no danger from international communism.

In April 1957, when King Hussein of Jordan faced a Pan-Arabist challenge from socialist-nationalists and the Communist party, the U.S. government moved the Sixth Fleet to the eastern Mediterranean and provided $10 million in economic aid to his country, the first installment of a regular annual subsidy.  And when Syria appeared to be moving closer to Nasser and the Soviets, the Eisenhower administration, egged on by Turkey, Iraq, and Jordan, put area forces on alert and issued warnings against outside interference.  The crisis subsided without direct intervention.  Although the president talked much of the internal communist threat to the Arab countries, Eisenhower's biographer Stephen Ambrose writes that "what Eisenhower really feared was radical Arab nationalism" and its threat to the feudal monarchies.

A full-blown intervention under the Eisenhower Doctrine finally took place in Lebanon in 1958.  Rising Pan-Arabism, which worried several Arab regimes, surged on February 1 when Egypt and Syria joined to become the United Arab Republic.  In response, King Hussein entered a unity agreement of his own with his fellow Hashemite ruler in Iraq.  And King Saud of Saudi Arabia was also so concerned that he tried to have Nasser assassinated.

In Lebanon the development was viewed as especially upsetting.  The fragile Lebanese confessional system, in which religious groups have representation in the government in ratios fixed by the constitution, made the country particularly susceptible to disturbances.

Lebanon's large Sunni Muslim population was sympathetic to Pan-Arabism, as were its Druzes (a Muslim sect). Camille Chamoun, the country's Maronite Catholic president, feared Nasser and his ideology and favored a close relationship with the United States. 

Chamoun aggravated the Pan-Arabist distrust of him by seeking a second six-year term as president, contrary to the Lebanese constitution.  To achieve that ambition, he used dubious methods (possibly rigging the election) to elect a parliamentary majority that would change the constitution.  The CIA funneled money to selected candidates.  When a pro-Nasser newspaper editor was killed, a rebellion ignited: a coalition of Sunni, Druze, and other opponents of Chamoun demanded his resignation and called for radical reform.  The rebels controlled parts of Beirut and rural areas and accepted armed assistance from Syria.

Chamoun appealed to Eisenhower for help on May 13.  Initially, the United States was reluctant to intervene, but on July 14 a coup d'etat took place in Iraq, home of the Baghdad Pact, and the monarchy was replaced by a government led by Gen. Abdul Karim Qassem, a reputed Nasserite.  When the new Iraqi government allied itself with the United Arab Republic, fear of spreading instability in the region led Eisenhower to send troops to Lebanon.  He warned that "this somber turn of events could, without vigorous response on our part, well result in a complete elimination of Western influence in the Middle East."  But the Eisenhower administration decided not to intervene in Iraq when Qassem announced that the Iraq Petroleum Company, in which American oil firms held shares, would not be disturbed; in fact, the United States recognized the new government on July 30.

On July 15 the first of 14,357 U.S. troops landed in Lebanon.  Meanwhile, Eisenhower's special emissary, Robert Murphy, worked out a solution: Gen. Fuad Chehab, a compromise Christian candidate acceptable to Eisenhower, Nasser, and most Lebanese, would become president; Chamoun would complete his original term; and Washington would provide $10 million in aid. One of Chamoun's opponents, Rashid Karami, became prime minister, however, and promptly announced that recognition of the Eisenhower Doctrine would be withdrawn and that Lebanon would shift to nonaligned status.  Washington accepted that policy shift and withdrew all of its troops by October 25. Fortunately, no Lebanese or American was killed in the U.S. military intervention.

The U.S. government counted the operation a success, but that one and only application of the Eisenhower Doctrine was actually a misapplication.  The doctrine was ostensibly formulated to deter armed aggression by nations controlled by "International Communism," but neither Syria nor Egypt was controlled by the Soviet Union; they were not even independent communist regimes.  "He [Nasser] curbed and suppressed native Communists both in Egypt and Syria," wrote historian George Len-czowski, "and, despite heavy dependence on Soviet arms and economic aid, jealously maintained his country's sovereignty."

Two lessons National Security Council officials learned from the Lebanon intervention apparently were not heeded by subsequent policymakers.  A November 1958 NSC document warned that "to be cast in the role of Nasser's opponent would be to leave the Soviets as his champion."  The document also counseled against "becoming too closely identified with individual factions in Lebanese politics."  The first lesson would be ignored in 1967, the second in 1983.

~ Sheldon Richman, "'Ancient History': U.S. Conduct in the Middle East Since World War II and the Folly of Intervention," Cato Institute, August 16, 1991, p. 10-11

Dwight D. Eisenhower's Chance for Peace speech

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.  The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.  It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.  It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.  It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.  We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat.  We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people...  This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense.  Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

~ President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Chance for Peace speech, a.k.a. Cross of Iron speech, April 16, 1953

Dwight D. Eisenhower shows his admiration for General Robert E. Lee

General Robert E. Lee was… one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation.  He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was a poised and inspiring leader, true to the high trust reposed in him by millions of his fellow citizens; he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle.  Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith in God.  Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history. 

From deep conviction, I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee’s calibre would be unconquerable in spirit and soul.  Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the Nation’s wounds once the bitter struggle was over, we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained. 

Such are the reasons that I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960

(As quoted by Pat Buchanan, "After Lee, It's Lincoln's Turn," December 18, 2020.)

Confederate Generals Lee and Jackson
1936-1937

Dwight D. Eisenhower on the Great Man theory in America

Never let yourself be persuaded that any one Great Man, any one leader, is necessary to the salvation of America.  When America consists of one leader and 158 million followers, it will no longer be America.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

John T. Flynn on Eisenhower's phoney war on communism

No one accuses [President Eisenhower] of being a Red or even a socialist.  On the contrary, the one great remaining dream of his life seems to be to lead a host against the Red legions all over the world - as if Communism, which is a social disease, could be whipped by armies.  The President does not seem to realize that militarism is a social disease and that it was the effort of the old Germany and France and Italy to bolster their economic systems by militarism supported by government debt that brought all these countries to the brink of bankruptcy in 1914, and then into war to escape the insoluble problems they had created by their folly.  He does not seem to know that militarism bankrupted Germany, France, and Italy twice in fifty years.

~ John T. Flynn, "Our Phoney War on Communism," The American Mercury, February 1954

Eisenhower's warning

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

President Dwight Eisenhower, farewell address to the nation, Jan. 17, 1961

Eisenhower on preemptive war

Preventive war was an invention of Hitler.  Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously who talked about such a thing.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower