Eisenhower Doctrine (1957).The Eisenhower Doctrine pledged that the United States would distribute economic and military aid and, if necessary, use military force to contain communism in the Middle East. President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed the doctrine in January 1957. Congress approved it in March despite misgivings about the administration's perspective on the Middle East, the preservation of Israeli interests under the doctrine, and the surrender of congressional prerogatives to the executive branch.

The doctrine resulted directly from the Suez War of late 1956. The Anglo‐French‐Israeli military assault on Egypt discredited Britain and France, traditional protectors of western interests in the Middle East; elevated the prestige of Egyptian Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser; and raised the specter in U.S. minds of Soviet intrusion into the region. The remaining prowestern rulers of the Middle East seemed vulnerable to Nasserist uprisings and Soviet influence. U.S. officials resolved to fill the power vacuum in the Middle East before the Soviets did.

Although never formally invoked, the Eisenhower Doctrine guided U.S. policy in three controversies. In spring 1957, Eisenhower provided economic aid to Jordan and dispatched the U.S. Sixth Fleet to the eastern Mediterranean to help Jordan's King Hussein survive a rebellion by army officers oriented toward Nasser. To counter growing Soviet influence in Syria, the United States sent arms to neighboring regimes and encouraged Turkey to concentrate forces on the Syrian border, prompting Syria to join Egypt in forming the United Arab Republic in January 1958. When a coup d'état in Baghdad in July 1958 threatened to spark revolution in Lebanon and Jordan, Eisenhower ordered U.S. soldiers to occupy Beirut and transport British paratroopers to Amman, the Jordanian capital.

By late 1958, officials in Washington realized that their resistance to Arab nationalism had failed to guarantee western interests in the region. The Eisenhower Doctrine faded as the administration adopted a policy that was more accommodating to nationalism.
See also Cold War; Containment; Foreign Relations: U.S. Relations with the Middle East.

Bibliography

David W. Lesch , Syria and the United States: Eisenhower's Cold War in the Middle East, 1992.
Irene L. Gendzier , Notes from the Minefield: United States Intervention in Lebanon and the Middle East, 1945–1958, 1997.

Peter L. Hahn

Eisenhower Doctrine (1957).After the Suez Crisis of 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, citing the danger of the spread of “international Communism,” told Congress on 5 January 1957 that the United States regarded “as vital to the national interest and world peace the preservation of the independence and integrity of the nations of the Middle East.” He asked for authorization to develop economic and military programs, including the use of armed forces, to assist any “nation or group of nations in the general area of the Middle East desiring such assistance” to preserve their independence. After two months of acrimonious debate, Congress approved the “Eisenhower Doctrine” in a joint resolution on 9 March 1957.

The United States first invoked the Eisenhower Doctrine in the Jordanian crisis of April 1957, and again in August 1957 when a perceived Syrian‐Soviet rapprochement threatened the stability of the region. But Eisenhower did not dispatch armed forces. A military coup against the pro‐Western regime in Iraq on 14 July 1958 sparked the most visible manifestation of the Eisenhower Doctrine during the Lebanon Crisis, when Lebanese president Camille Chaumon requested immediate military assistance to counter perceived Egyptian‐Syrian attempts to destabilize his government. On 15 July, Eisenhower deployed the Sixth Fleet and landed nearly 15,000 U.S. troops to ensure that Lebanon could elect its own president without external interference.

Seldom mentioned after 1958, the Eisenhower Doctrine was indicative of American preoccupation with the Cold War. Characterized by some historians as an extension of the Truman Doctrine, Eisenhower's policy lent credence to the belief that the United States had assumed a global role in the preservation of regional stability and the promotion of its own national interests.
[See also Middle East, U.S. Military Involvement in the.]

Bibliography

Dwight Eisenhower , The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956–1961, 1965.
Roger Spiller , ‘Not War But Like War’: The American Intervention in Lebanon. Leavenworth, Papers, 1981.
Stephen E. Ambrose , Eisenhower: The President, 1984.
Alan Dowty , Middle East Crisis: U.S. Decision‐Making in 1958, 1970, and 1973, 1984.
George Lenczowski , American Presidents and the Middle East, 1990.

Cole C. Kingseed

EISENHOWER DOCTRINE

EISENHOWER DOCTRINE. Following the Suez Crisis and the decline of British influence in the Middle East, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles believed that Soviet assertiveness and growing Arab nationalism, especially that of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, posed a threat to vital U.S. interests. On 5 January 1957, Eisenhower announced that the United States would use military force to defend the independence and territorial integrity of Middle Eastern states against communist aggression. Congress voted its approval two months later.

The Eisenhower Doctrine defined itself as a defensive move to contain Soviet expansionism, but response from the governments of the Middle East was mixed. Jordan and Lebanon welcomed the declaration. Egypt and Syria denounced it as a threat to their security. Israel responded skeptically and Iraq and Saudi Arabia opposed a U.S. military role in the region.

Eisenhower did not invoke the doctrine in 1958, when he ordered troops to Lebanon to thwart an uprising by Muslim rebels, because there was no evidence of communist involvement. In late 1958 Eisenhower replaced the activist principles of his doctrine with a new policy of seeking accommodation with Arab nationalists to preserve U.S. influence in the Middle East. The Carter Doctrine of 1980 revived the military emphasis in U.S. policy toward the region.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ashton, Nigel John. Eisenhower, Macmillan, and the Problem of Nasser: Anglo-American Relations and Arab Nationalism, 1955–59. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996.

Brands, H. W. The Specter of Neutralism: The United States and the Emergence of the Third World. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.

Takeyh, Ray. The Origins of the Eisenhower Doctrine: The US, Britain, and Nasser's Egypt, 1953–57. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000.

Max PaulFriedman

See alsoCarter Doctrine ; Egypt, Relations with ; Israel, Relations with ; Lebanon, U.S. Landing in .

Eisenhower Doctrine A statement of US foreign policy issued by President EISENHOWER after the SUEZ WAR and approved by Congress in 1957. It proposed to offer economic aid and military advice to governments in the Middle East who felt their independence threatened and led to the USA sending 10,000 troops to Lebanon (1958) when its government, fearing a Muslim revolution, asked for assistance. Britain had also sent troops (1957) to protect Jordan, and despite Soviet protests US and British forces remained in the Middle East for some months. The Doctrine, whose assumption that Arab nationalism was Soviet inspired came to be seen as fallacious, lapsed with the death (1959) of the US Secretary of State, John DULLES.

Eisenhower Doctrine (USA) Following the Suez Crisis of 1956, President Eisenhower proposed to give US economic and military aid to Middle East governments who felt their independence threatened, and to guarantee such regimes against invasion or Soviet subversion. In 1957, Congress authorized the provision of $200 million for the purpose. In 1958 the USA sent 5,000 troops to Lebanon to support President Camille Chamoun, who feared revolution. It was based upon the central (and flawed) assumption that pan-Arab nationalism was necessarily inspired by the Soviet Union. It lapsed in the last years of the Eisenhower adminstration from 1959.

Eisenhower Doctrine a foreign-policy program presented by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and approved by Congress on March 9, 1957, during the Cold War. Often characterized as an extension of the Truman Doctrine, it authorized the use of military and economic aid to prevent the spread of communism in nations in the Middle East.