US Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Observing that ‘most political revolutions – including our own – have been buoyed by outside aid in men, weapons, and ideas’, Kennedy argued that:

Instead of abandoning African nationalism to the anti-Western agitators and Soviet agents who hope to capture its leadership, the United States, a product of political revolution, must redouble its efforts to earn the respect and friendship of nationalist leaders.16

Ronald Nurse points out that ‘while in the Senate, Kennedy often expressed his belief that … a flexible anti-colonial policy in Washington was essential to combat the spread of communism in the Third World nations’.17 Kennedy’s critique was consistent with the arguments he had been making throughout the decade: the United States should accept that in the post-colonial world the political problems of emerging nations could not be viewed entirely through the prism of Cold War containment. Nevertheless, a contemporary article in Time magazine saw the political motive behind Kennedy’s argument: ‘to Administration ears, Kennedy’s Algeria speech sounded like troublesome meddling, possibly part of the build-up of his stock as a Democratic presidential nominee in 1960’. Both John Foster Dulles and Eisenhower were highly critical of an intervention that caused diplomatic protest on both sides of the Atlantic.18

With the 1960 election approaching Time’s suspicion of Kennedy’s motives appeared well-founded. He took advantage of any opportunity that might help to burnish his credentials as the candidate who offered a fresh, creative approach to leadership. In 1958, William Lederer and Eugene Burdick’s polemic, The Ugly American, became an instant national best-seller. It was a powerful endorsement of Kennedy’s critique of the Eisenhower administration’s approach to Third World diplomacy. Kennedy sent a copy of the book to every member of the Senate. Its concluding paragraph might have been taken from one of his speeches:

All over Asia we have found that the basic American ethic is revered and honoured and imitated when possible. We must, while helping Asia toward self-sufficiency, show by example that America is still the America of freedom and hope and knowledge and law. If we succeed, we cannot lose the struggle.19

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