Kissinger Case Summary

Even in hindsight it difficult to pick one document as the correct one. Instead it can be argued that the correct course of action for the United States at the time would have been a blend of both documents. While the Long Telegram suggested negotiating with the Soviet Union, many historians have argued that Kellan, the author, did not put enough hold into the Soviet Union's belief in Communism, instead saying that deep rooted Russian insecurities were the basis of the Soviet Union’s actions. On the other hand, while the NSC-68 may have been correct in encouraging the preparation of the USA’s military and the growth of their overall strength, the overly militaristic approach in their containment plan stopped the document from even considering negotiations before direct conflict. Overall, each document had different benefits, as well as flaws, and should have been looked at in conjunction to give the reader both

Washington D.C. in the summertime is constantly perspiring, a rather miserable place to be. And, although the summer of 1949 was equally as dredged, Paul Nitze, an expert economist who lacked status in the United States government, was about to receive the opportunity of a lifetime. George Kennan, longtime diplomat and Russian studies expert, was looking to retire to his quiet farm in Pennsylvania, but he needed to leave a successor for the Policy Planning Staff. He decided on Paul Nitze. However, just months later after Russia succeeded in building and testing an atomic bomb and Nitze’s appeal for an assessment of U.S. Foreign Policy, Kennan on September 30 wrote, “I face the work of these remaining months with neither enthusiasm nor hope for achievement.” Obviously, the Cold War would be a large undertaking for any Russian expert in the State Department, however, it is more than likely that he was referring to working closely with colleague whose foreign policy tactics evidently began to differ greatly from his own as time would show.

On April 14 1950 NSC-68 a 58 page top secret policy paper was presented to President Harry S Truman by the United States National Security Council. It was a very important statements of American policy in the Cold War. NSC-68 provide the blueprint for the militarization of the Cold War. It called for an expansion of the military power and defense budget of the united states development of a hydrogen bomb,and increased military aid to be allies.The US could not expect other countries to stop communism and the United States must estimates itself in a non communist

In the fall of 1971, as President Nixon was attempting to convince The Soviet Union to include submarines and ballistic missiles in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), the US Navy was planning on introducing a new class of submarines called the Trident. The Trident submarines were to succeed the Polaris submarines, which was developed in the 1950s. The Trident submarines were not only physically larger than the Polaris submarines, they also possessed revolutionary propulsion components and weaponry. If the US could successfully launch the Trident program, Nixon felt it would generate progress in SALT by demonstrating the United States’ commitment to strategic submarines and missiles. However, if the Trident program was unable to

The historian Stanley Karnow made a comment that America had a strict desire to not be committed to anything being signed at Geneva because of the fact that US Secretary of State Dulles ordered the US delegation chief, Bedell Smith, to remain aloof and make no concessions to the Communists. Dulles knew, suggests Karnow, that whatever was going to come out of Geneva was going to be unsatisfactory.

Nixon used his power of executive agreements manipulatively in a strategy that he called, linkage politics; this is a term for strategically organizing the United States relationships with communist powers (Small 1999, 63). Nixon knew that he must settle the Vietnam War with honor because it was a stake in Southeast Asia. Using his theory of linkage politics he saw that the end of the Vietnam War would affect negotiations with China and Russia (Small, 1999 65). He first tried to make an executive agreement with Russia, by explaining to them his idea of “strategic parity. This was an idea that because both nations had enough weapons to completely demolishes the other, neither should start war, and peace would continue. Like Eisenhower’s attempts, Nixon was unable to make an agreement with the USSR and talks continued to be slow (PBS Nixon 2002, 2).

Our analysis would be based on scholarly journals by Melvin Small and Geoffrey Warner, with one going against both the containment and detente policies while the second would actually consider Kissinger as being the savior of the Nation from exiting the war, dirty. Towards the end, we have Thornton book review of Savienery and rather considering that the containment policy actually made a big difference on the outcomes of the war.

In 1972, President Nixon engaged in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) with Soviet Secretary General Brezhnev in his attempt to ease tension with USSR through diplomatic détente.

This court case is in regard to the rock group, “The Slants”. The lead singer of the group, Simon Tam, decide to choose this moniker, because it was intended to regain the term’s meaning, and remove the negative connotation associated with the word. Tam’s intention was to the shift the moniker away from being a derogatory term towards Asian persons. Moreover, Tam attempted to gain federal registration of the moniker through The Patent and Trademark Office. However, the PTO denied the application. The office used the Lanham Act provision, which states trademarks that disparage any individual deal or alive from being registered. The case moved to the Federal Court. Here, the trademark was denied once again under the Disparagement Clause. Continuing on, the en banc Federal Circuit then found the disparagement clause to be unconstitutional on the grounds of the Free Speech Clause protected in the First

The National Security Council has a long linage dating back to the end of the Second World War, and has played a vital role in the President’s decision making process of national security and foreign policy matters. Established under the National Security Act of 1947 and later was amended by the Reorganization Plan in 1949, the council was placed in the Executive Office of the President. Setting on the council is the President as the chairmen, along with the Vice-President, Secretary of State and others that assist the president for National Security Affairs (National Security Council n.d.). The start of the National Security Council was brought under the administration of President Truman,

When discussing Eisenhower, Gaddis details the massive retaliation policy adopted by Eisenhower and John Dulles. “The New Look’ as it is referred to, was instead of building up the military by providing more men, instead it would be cost effective to build up arms, and threaten nuclear attacks if the Soviets attempted to influence other areas across the globe and spread communism. With Kennedy and Johnson both, the return to NSC-68 and Vietnam are covered by Gaddis. With more military and economic support for preventing communism, troops were spread to places in Vietnam specifically and across the globe attempting to resist communist forces in many places. This ‘flexible response’ was in essence reducing the power of the army as a whole. The defeat in Vietnam and the flexible response method used by Kennedy and Johnson was judged harshly by Gaddis. The final administration covered by Gaddis was the Nixon presidency. This period, known as Détente, signals a return to Kennan’s approach to an extent while combining policies from the Kennedy and Johnson diplomacy. Nixon and Kissinger worked towards establishing international rules of conduct in which the Soviets and China would soon follow promptly and the balance of powers in the world would provide for stability.

Furthermore the concept of taboo and deterrence working together comes from theorist Henry Kissinger who was the Secretary of State under the Richard Nixon administration during the Vietnam War and played a huge roll in United States foreign policy. In his book ‘Diplomacy’, Kissinger writes, “Never have the military gap between the superpower and non-nuclear state been greater. Never was it best likely to be invoked.”[6] Tanenwald would suggest Taboo was working in the concept of Deterrence with Kissinger’s words, possibly signalling the importance of taboo as a reason for nuclear non-use since 1945.

“Kissinger’s passion for stability, balance, and order is supposedly derived from his firsthand experience with the tragedy of upheaval and the desire to prevent it from recurring” (Starr 477-8). This is apparent in his foreign policy actions that consistently show an attempt to create “world order” (Blumenfeld 68).

Edward Sheehan, the author of "How Kissinger Did It: Step by Step in the Middle East," explains that “…Kissinger accepted and in fact helped to promote the conventional strategic wisdom of the first Nixon administration that…a strong Israel militarily, much superior to its Arab foes, would prevent war and serve as the surest sentinel of American interests in the Middle East” (8-9). The advantage of a strong Israeli military encouraged the United States to consistently support Israel. The Arab countries did not take this favoritism very lightly. An oil embargo was placed on the United States and that would prove to be economically disastrous. Because of the their huge reliance on oil, “the United States was especially hard-hit by the OPEC embargo, which was directed toward all supporters of Israel in its latest military conflict against neighboring Arab countries” (Hook 340). A major reason why the United States is so invested in some areas of the Middle East is due to their oil production. This encourages the United States to maintain healthy relationships in that region.

President Kennedy and the group of advisors he had assembled, known as ExComm, evaluated a number of different options. After a week of careful consideration, he announced the discovery of the missiles to the world and imposed a naval blockade, or quarantine, to prevent shipments of wepons to Cuba. A tense second week followed, during which neither side backed down. Presented with the choice of attacking or accepting Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, Kennedy rejected both options. Instead, he came up with an alternative option with three components: a public deal in which the United States pledged not to invade Cuba if the Soviet Union withdrew its missiles; a private ultimatum threatening to attack Cuba within 24 hours if the offer was rejected;