Tracing the Development of the Nuclear Taboo: The Eisenhower Administration and Four Crises in East Asia

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hanania
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Korean War ◽  
Eisenhower Administration ◽  
Cuban Missile Crisis ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Nuclear Diplomacy ◽  
Changes Over Time

Many scholars have argued that a taboo on the use of nuclear weapons became widely accepted in the 1960s, spurred on by the Cuban missile crisis and the subsequent growth of U.S. and Soviet long-range nuclear missile forces. The Eisenhower administration, in contrast, has been seen as relatively more willing to use nuclear diplomacy to achieve its military objectives. This article examines the Eisenhower administration's attitudes toward nuclear weapons during four crises in East Asia: the end of the Korean War, the siege of Dien Bien Phu, and the shelling of Quemoy and Matsu in 1954–1955 and 1958. U.S. officials at first acted almost as if nuclear weapons were simply “bigger bombs,” but as the decade progressed, nuclear weapons were increasingly seen as all but unusable. Much of the confusion regarding Dwight Eisenhower's attitude toward this issue resulted from changes over time and the complex interactions he had with members of his administration who argued for a more aggressive stance toward foreign enemies.

scholarly journals LIBERTY AS THE IMPOSSIBLE, THE LANGUAGE OF SILENCE: IN REREADING KIM SUYǑNG’S WORKS IN 1960s

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 63-71
Author(s):  
Seoyoon CHOI
Keyword(s):  
Korean War ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Poetic Language ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
The 1960S

This article examines several works written by Kim Suyǒng in the 1960s with a focus on negation as the poetic method in accordance with revolution. He lived through a late colonial period, the Korean War, the April Revolution, and Park Chung Hee’s regime and he was keenly aware Koreans had not spoken of liberty as the invention of modernity in our mother tongue throughout our history. He dedicated all his poems to demonstrating why liberty was impossible to be spoken in Korean. In the course of his writing, his authentic poetic language developed into silence as a martyr, the language of death and love. In so doing, he could “live liberty” through his poetry in accordance with his conscience in the authoritarian society.

Mr. X and the Pacific

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J. Heer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
The Impact

This book chronicles and assesses the little-known involvement of US diplomat George F. Kennan—renowned as an expert on the Soviet Union—in US policy toward East Asia, primarily in the early Cold War years. Kennan, with vital assistance from his deputy John Paton Davies, played pivotal roles in effecting the US withdrawal from the Chinese civil war and the redirection of American occupation policy in Japan, and in developing the “defensive perimeter” concept in the western Pacific. His influence, however, faded soon thereafter: he was less successful in warning against US security commitments in Korea and Indochina, and the impact of the Korean War ultimately eclipsed his strategic vision for US policy in East Asia. This was due in large part to Kennan’s inability to reconcile his judgment that the mainland of East Asia was strategically expendable to the United States with his belief that US prestige should not be compromised there. The book examines the subsequent evolution of Kennan’s thinking about East Asian issues—including his role as a prominent critic of US involvement in the Vietnam War—and the legacies of his engagement with the region.

Cold War Mnemonics: History, Melancholy, and Landscape in South Korean Films of the 1960s

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 389-412
Author(s):  
Hyun Seon Park
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Korean War ◽  
Historical Trauma ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Mnemonic Devices ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Work Of Mourning ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract This article examines the way that cinematic mnemonics of 1960s South Korean films ciphers the heterogeneous and conflicting experiences regarding two entangled wars: the Korean War and the Cold War. In a close reading of Kim Suyong’s Mist (An’gae, 1967) and Yi Sŏnggu’s The General’s Mustache (Changgun ŭi suyŏm, 1968), the article argues for the multifaceted aesthetics of Cold War mnemonics, which illuminates a binding and unbinding technology of affective memories in which the traumatic experience of the Korean war parallels the dominant narrative of Cold War historiography. In Mist and The General’s Mustache, historical trauma and the experience of loss take up important positions in relation to melancholic landscape and mnemonic devices. Visualizing the interstice between melancholy and mourning, between memory and history, and between landscape and interiority through the devices of flashback, widescreen, montage, and metanarrative structure, the exploration of mnemonic technologies is inextricably linked with the postwar Korean subject’s dual efforts to remember historical loss and to incorporate shameful memories. While Mist shows the male protagonist’s short visit to his countryside hometown, during which he is troubled by memories of the past and, thus, his encounter with the unfinished work of mourning, The General’s Mustache, beginning with a photojournalist’s suspicious death, assembles the fragmentary pieces of modern Korean history’s secrets through multiple frames of testimony and confession. Produced during the time of Cold War turmoil as well as at the height of global modernization, these films release alternative thinking about time, memory, and history, asking us to remember what is left behind in Cold War historiography.

Britain's Retreat East of Suez and the Conundrum of Korea 1968–1974

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-95
Author(s):  
Tae Joon Won
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
Korean War ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Korean Waters ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The 1960S

This article examines the discussions and decisions which occurred within the British government concerning Britain's military involvement in the Korean peninsula at a time when Britain was pulling out of its military obligations in Asia – colloquially known as the ‘retreat East of Suez’ – in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. After the end of the Korean War, Britain created the Commonwealth Liaison Mission in Seoul and provided a frigate for use in Korean waters by the American-led United Nations Command and British soldiers for the United Nations Honour Guard. When relations between North and South Korea reached crisis point at the end of the 1960s, London was concerned that Britain could be entangled in an unaffordable military conflict in the Korean peninsula. The Ministry of Defence therefore argued for the abolition of the commitment of the British frigate, but the Foreign Office opposed this initiative so as to mitigate the blow to Anglo-American relations caused by Britain's refusal to commit troops to Vietnam. When Edward Heath's government negotiated a Five Power Defence Agreement with Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand in April 1971, the Ministry of Defence was, despite the objections of the Foreign Office, finally successful in repealing the frigate commitment for reasons of overstretching military resources. Furthermore, the Ministry of Defence then called for the abolition of the Commonwealth Liaison Mission altogether when it was then discovered that the British contingent of the United Nations Honour Guard would have to fight under the command of the United Nations Commander in case of a military conflict in the Korean peninsula. But this proposal too was rebuffed by the Foreign Office, concerned that such a move would greatly damage Anglo-Korean relations at a time when Britain was considering establishing diplomatic relations with North Korea.

Aftermath of Korea

2018 ◽  
pp. 183-198
Author(s):  
Paul J. Heer
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Korean War ◽  
State Department ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The State ◽  
Strategic Vision ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Communist China ◽  
The Impact

This chapter discusses how the impact of the Korean War undermined and ultimately destroyed Kennan’s strategic vision for US policy in East Asia. It led to the US militarization of Japan; US security commitments in Korea, Taiwan, Indochina, and the Philippines; and a hardening of US policy toward Communist China—all of which he had opposed. The net result was the application in East Asia of a version of Kennan’s own containment doctrine that he did not support. The final tragic casualty was Davies himself: the chapter describes how McCarthyism and charges of Communist sympathies led unjustly to Davies’s dismissal from the State Department, and the impact this had on Kennan.

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