Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Johnson White House and Foreign Policy
- 2 Vietnam: Going to War, 1963–5
- 3 Vietnam: Waging War, 1965–9
- 4 Two Allies: Britain and France
- 5 NATO Nuclear Sharing and Troop Offset
- 6 Two Adversaries: The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China
- 7 Two Crises in the Middle East: Cyprus, 1964 and the Six-Day War, 1967
- 8 The Western Hemisphere: The Alliance for Progress, Cuba and the Dominican Republic
- 9 Dollars and Gold: Monetary and Trade Policy
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Two Adversaries: The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Johnson White House and Foreign Policy
- 2 Vietnam: Going to War, 1963–5
- 3 Vietnam: Waging War, 1965–9
- 4 Two Allies: Britain and France
- 5 NATO Nuclear Sharing and Troop Offset
- 6 Two Adversaries: The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China
- 7 Two Crises in the Middle East: Cyprus, 1964 and the Six-Day War, 1967
- 8 The Western Hemisphere: The Alliance for Progress, Cuba and the Dominican Republic
- 9 Dollars and Gold: Monetary and Trade Policy
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Cold War rivalry between East and West had emerged in earnest by around 1947, with Washington's enunciation of the ‘Truman Doctrine’ pledging economic and military support for allies facing a communist-inspired uprising. By the time President Johnson entered office in 1963, a mixture of crises such as that over Berlin, and more relaxed periods, had come to characterise the Soviet–American relationship. In particular, the experience of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 led both sides to reflect especially hard on the value of less adversarial policies. As was evident in relation to Vietnam, Johnson was very much a supporter of the Cold War consensus that the chief international aim of the United States was to inhibit the spread of communism, but he did recognise that in the nuclear age the superpowers bore a special responsibility to the world. Despite the Vietnam War, the failure to initiate arms control talks and the fact that Johnson focused on the relationship with the Soviet Union only sporadically, his Presidency proved to be a constructive period for the Soviet–American relationship, as was shown by a range of accords.
The relationship with the People's Republic of China (PRC) saw less tangible progress. China had become communist when Mao Zedong secured power in 1949 after years of civil war in which Washington had supported the Nationalists. The so-called ‘loss’ of China was seen as a profound setback for American Cold War interests.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Foreign Policy of Lyndon B. JohnsonThe United States and the World 1963–69, pp. 115 - 136Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2010