American Cold War Strategy: Interpreting NSC 68

Description

Written in 1950, NSC 68 laid out the rationale for American Cold War strategy.  This volume includes the complete text of NSC 68, followed by commentaries from former officials, specialists on American foreign policy, and American and foreign scholars.  Ernest May's analytical essays discuss the many ways in which this historical document can be read, remembered, and understood.

 

Table of Contents

Foreword
  Preface
    
  Introduction: NSC 68: The Theory and Politics of Strategy
    
PART I. THE DOCUMENT
    
    NSC 68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security (April 14, 1950)
    
PART II. COMMENTARIES
    
  1. Biases, Official and Scholarly
    
  2. Eyewitness Testimony
    George F. Kennan, Director of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, 1947-1950
    Dean Acheson, Secretary of State, 1949-1953
    Paul H. Nitze, Director of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, 1950-1953
    
  3. Later Officials' Retrospects
    Robert R. Bowie, Director of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, 1953-1957
    Carl Kaysen, Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 1961-1963
    Robert D. Blackwill, Assistant to the President for European and Soviet Affairs, 1989-1990
    Georgi M. Kornienko, American Expert, Foreign Ministry of the USSR, 1949-1990
    
  4. Interpreters of U.S. Foreign Policy
    Realism: Paul Y. Hammond
    Revisionism: William Appleman Williams
    Neorealism: Samuel F. Wells, Jr.
    Postrevisionism: John Lewis Gaddis
    Post-Postrevisionism: Lloyd Gardner
    
  5. American Interpreters of American History
    U.S. Political History: Alonzo L. Hamby
    U.S. Intellectual History: Bruce Kuklick
    U.S. Cultural History: Emily S. Rosenberg
    
  6. A World Historian and a Social Scientist
    Modern World History: Walter McDougall
    International Relations and Foreign Policy Theory: Deborah Welch Larson
    
  7. Foreign Scholars
    The United Kingdom: Zara Steiner
    Germany: Helga Haftendorn
    Norway: Geir Lundestad
    Russia: Vladislav Zubok
    People's Republic of China: Shu Guang Zhang
    
  8. Afterword
    
APPENDICES
    
  Chronology of the Cold War, 1944–1954
  Some Public Opinion Polls, 1948–1951
  Suggestions for Further Reading
    
  Index
    
  The Postwar Division of Europe (map)
  The Spread of Communism in China and Korea (map)