Vernon Turner

History 466
Bibliography
Lawrence, Mark Atwood. The Vietnam War: a concise international history. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2008.
McMahon, Robert J.. The Cold War in the Third World. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2013.
Smith, Gaddis. The last years of the Monroe doctrine, 1945-1993. New York: Hill and
Wang, 1994.
Paternalism and Race: American Foreign Policy in the Cold War
To understand America's foreign policy in the Cold War you must first
understand the definition of paternalism. Paternalism is the policy or practice on
the part of people in positions of authority of restricting the freedom and
responsibilities of subordinates in the subordinate's supposed best interest.
Paternalism is the nature that America began to adopt following WWII. The best two
examples of America's paternalism are in Latin America and Vietnam. This paper
intends to argue that American policy was influenced by subtle racism which was
expressed in a paternalistic outlook on both Latin America and Vietnam.
Following WWII, America was very much still an America that believed in the
Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine, up until the beginning of the Cold War, was
arguably the keystone to foreign policy in America. However, the Monroe Doctrine
inadvertently created a hierarchical scale. It placed America as the leader of a

group of lesser nations in the western hemisphere. The question that can be asked
is why did America view itself to be the leader of the rest of the western hemisphere
during the adoption of the Monroe Doctrine? The arguable answer is that, from
America's viewpoint, America was the strongest racially white state in the western
hemisphere at the time. Therefore they believed they should take the lead. The
idea that America held this right because of racial superiority may not have been
explicitly stated, but was a key motivator in Americans' belief in the Monroe
Doctrine.
Moving towards the Cold War, America held to the Monroe Doctrine even
during the creation of the United Nations Charter. When Woodrow Wilson brought
the idea of a League of Nations to Congress, it was shot down because of its
inherent attack on the Monroe Doctrine. In an effort to keep American superiority
intact, "Article 52 authorized regional arrangements or agencies" set up by the
United Nations (Smith pg 54). This meant that the United Nations, unlike what the
League of Nations tried to do, allowed America to maintain priority in the western
hemisphere. This would lead to the addition of the "Kennan Corollary" to the
Monroe Doctrine (Smith pg 65). The "Kennan Corollary" would allow the United
States to view foreign ideologies in the same way that colonial powers were viewed
under the Monroe Doctrine. This additive towards Latin America was necessary
because of the belief that "in Latin America Kennan saw a political structure too
weak and selfish enough to support democracy strong enough to resist the superior
determination and skill of the communist enemy" (Smith pg 70). To be clear,
America generally viewed communists as inferior; therefore Kennan is saying that
Latin Americans are even more inferior to the communists. The belief of Latin
American inferiority can be thought of as being derived from racism.

This racial privilege still carried over from the Monroe Doctrine grew into the
previously mentioned concept of paternalism. America believed that communism
was bad for everyone and that America needed to help all states everywhere fight
communism , as expressed in the Truman Doctrine. However, because of America's
belief in their superiority, they assumed they knew what was best for Latin America.
For example, America tired to stage a coup in Guatemala. In 1951 while under
Jacabo Arbenz, Guatemala began agricultural reforms that angered the local
American United Fruit Company (Smith pg 74). Shortly after, the United Fruit
Company convinced the CIA that something needed to done. America began an
economic war against Guatemala. The attempt was mostly fruitless, which led to
anger and comments like Assistant Secretary Miller's comment of how "I think the
Guatemalans, like so many other people, will be more cooperative if it sinks though
their skulls that they need us more than we need them" (Smith pg 77). This shows
the definite belief of American superiority and the measure of how much America
thought it knew what was best for Guatemala specifically. At the time of the
attempted coup, Guatemala appealed to the Security Council of the United Nations.
However, America's Henry Lodge was the president at the time and refused to help
Guatemala. America's involvement in Guatemala shows not only an infringement
on another sovereign state's rights, but the hubris that comes along with
entitlement because of the belief of racial superiority. The only viewpoint that
justifies America's actions in Guatemala is the one that has hints of racism and the
belief of superiority over those in Latin America.
The second example of racist influence and paternalism in foreign policy is
America's handling of Vietnam. There was still a racist tone towards those who
were not thought to have the capacity for democracy in the late 1940's. President

Franklin Roosevelt "like most Americans of his generation, believed that Vietnamese
and other nonwhite peoples around the world lacked the ability to govern
themselves" (Lawrence pg 23). This was an inherent way of thinking for many
Americans during the Cold War. This line of thinking, along with other factors, would
lead to America giving France approval to reestablish its colonies in Vietnam.
The French attempted to colonize Vietnam once again but faced formidable
resistance. This led to war between the Vietnamese and the French. France was
unable to continue the fight for long and after they fell out of the war, America
joined in to fight the Vietnamese. Firstly though, the World Powers came to the
negotiating table to talk peace. This resulted in all parties agreeing that Vietnam
should be divided at the Seventeenth Parallel and that an election be held in 1956
(Lawrence pg 43). This is an example of how American foreign policymakers had a
paternalistic outlook towards Vietnam as well. America foreign policymakers
believed that splitting the country in half would be best and the Vietnamese did not
think that at all. In fact, America believed that it knew what was best for Vietnam
as a whole.
America, turning its gaze on South Vietnam, believed "on this wobbly
foundation, US leaders set out to build a sturdy anticommunist state" (Lawrence pg
48). This is because this is what America thought was best for Vietnam, and
America only needed to convince Vietnam and the world to see it that way. This is
also a strong example of racism: the American belief that they knew what was best
for a people they knew nothing about. All America knew about the Vietnamese was
that they were inferior and therefore must need American aid. JFK's administration
believed that it could "use America's vast material power to guide the development
of the third world" (Lawrence pg 53).

A great example of America's paternalistic nature towards South Vietnam was

the coup to overthrow Diem. Diem had been placed in power by America and had
been running South Vietnam in a way that was mostly satisfactory to America.
However, Diem explored options to make peace with North Vietnam and end his
reliance on American aid (Lawrence pg 64). When Kennedy got word of this, he
gave the green light to stage a coup in South Vietnam. America felt entitled to
remove Diem for the supposed best interest of both South Vietnam and America.
The best example of racist influence in foreign policy in Vietnam was the
Strategic Hamlets program. This program forcibly removed the South Vietnamese
from their land and rounded them up in one area for the purpose of better policy
control (Lawrence pg 57). This showed that America felt that they knew what was
best for the Vietnamese and had little respect for them as a people. Little did
America know that the Vietnamese were culturally tied to their land and moving
them was very unsettling. This strategy ended up causing moral problems within
South Vietnam and creating what LBJ called a hearts and minds problem.
LBJ needed the South Vietnamese to believe that America was on their side
and was doing what was in their best interest. Unfortunately, LBJ like most
American foreign policymakers had no clue what was in the best interest of the
South Vietnamese.
When it came to fighting in Vietnam, LBJ constantly underestimated the
Vietnamese military fighting force. LBJ committed to operation "Rolling Thunder,"
believing that the North Vietnamese would not be able to sustain much more
bombing and would surrender (Lawrence pg 69). During his presidency, LBJ was
committed to escalating the conflict until the North Vietnamese hit their breaking

point. The racist subtlety in this situation was assuming that they were near their
breaking point. LBJ had no real intelligence to tell him the Vietnamese were close to
breaking. LBJ assumed because of his racial predisposition of the Vietnamese "that
such a weak nation - ' a damn little pissant country,' as Johnson put it could hold out
indefinitely" (Lawrence pg 71). This was the same mentality that America carried
throughout the war - a mentality that they were better than their opponent.
American foreign policymakers believed they were on the edge of winning the war
because they were better than their opponents.
The story of American foreign policy is one where American policymakers
believe that they know what is better for another state than the state itself. It is this
paternalistic attitude that gives way for the embarrassing follies in Latin America
and Vietnam. However, the paternalistic attitude towards smaller states comes
from a much longer tradition of racist outlooks on these different states. This is
shown in the Monroe Doctrine and expansion into global affairs. It is the subtle
racist streak in the American subconscious that influences paternalistic attitudes
towards smaller states. This streak led to the entitled view of Latin America and
more specifically, the staging of an attempted coup in Guatemala. This streak also
led to the mistreatment of the South Vietnamese, involving America in the South
Vietnamese government by staging a coup, and drastically underestimating the
fighting power of the North Vietnamese. Racism was not a conscious factor during
the Cold War, but an unconscious idea that America had about the rest of the world.
These factors led the United States taking the right to interfere in global affairs to
ensure that American interests were met. This action shows the United States
putting its own interest ahead of global interest.