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American Foreign Policy Dbq Analysis

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The United States had a total of seven presidents in office throughout the Cold War. All presidents had different views and ideas on foreign policies. Due to a change in situation every time a new president was elected all presidents had to deal with certain situations, situations we not the only thing that played a role in the differences in foreign policy but ideals, for example their political party (Democrat or Republican). Due to these reasons every president in office has different view on how to handle foreign policies, many of which succeeded while also enduring some type of setback.
President Truman was the first president in office during the Cold War, which started a few years after World War II had ended. Because only a few years had passed since World War II ended many countries were still suffering from lack of economic stability. (Doc A). This is why President Truman created the Marshall Plan which provided aid to countries who needed the money post World War II. (Doc C). The Cold War was not the only conflict that Truman had to deal with, he also dealt with the Korean conflict which was a conflict the UN was involved in to keep communism from spreading from North Korea to South Korea, which held up his policy of containment (Doc B). Although the goal of keeping …show more content…

President Eisenhower’s military background influenced many of his foreign policy decisions, specifically the “Zero tolerance” policy. The idea of the Zero tolerance policy was to not just to contain communism like Truman, but to destroy it. (Doc D). Eisenhower was so set on the idea, that he increased the spending for US defense drastically during his term. (Doc I). Although Eisenhower talked about destroying communism, the nation was shocked when Hungary decided to revolt against Communism for Democracy, and Eisenhower did nothing to help them, leading to Hungry losing the revolt and continuing to be a communist

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