Rhetoric and reality: The Eisenhower Administration and unrest in Eastern Europe, 1953-1959

Despite keen American interest in the political upheaval that has periodically erupted behind the Iron Curtain over the last thirty years, scholars have produced few works that systematically analyze U.S. policies in response to these events. Moreover, those studies completed have been limited by the lack of access to important national security memoranda. This dissertation attempts to partially fill this gap by using recently declassified materials to explore the Eisenhower Administration's policies toward Eastern Europe and the issue of unrest. It examines the U.S. response to the 1953 East German uprising, the Poznan riots three years later, and the explosions in Poland and in Hungary during the fall of 1956 to discover what the Eisenhower Administration was trying to accomplish and why. What is found suggests a lot more substance and coherence to the Eisenhower Administration's policies than previously thought. Talk of liberation was more than mere election year rhetoric directed at ethnic voters. Following the East German uprising, a loosely defined operational strategy was devised, incorporating elements of the "liberation" policy espoused by the Republicans, that guided U.S. actions in Eastern Europe for the next three years. This strategy sought to weaken the war fighting capabilities of the USSR at the same time that it improved living conditions for the "captive peoples" and contributed to the region's eventual liberation. Humanitarian and economic aid, covert operations, psychological warfare, and rhetoric were all used to "pressure" Eastern Europe and accelerate change. Despite its seeming coherency, the Eisenhower Administration's strategy toward Eastern Europe and unrest was flawed, both in conception and implementation. For what contributed to the administration's success ultimately was its undoing. The ambiguity that surrounded the administration's policies, and particularly its rhetoric, helped maintain the "spirit of resistance" behind the Iron Curtain; but the military support it implied also contributed to the bloodshed in East Germany and Hungary. Walking the fine line between encouragement and incitement was an inherently dangerous policy that was beyond the willingness and capabilities of the Eisenhower Administration to support. After Hungary, the United States pursued similar goals in less dangerous ways.