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“Lebanon was selected to become a victim”: Why did President Eisenhower sendAmerican marines to Beirut in July 1958?

Biographers and historians of President Dwight Eisenhower

have – as is common with studies of individual roles in

history – become preoccupied with the question of “who made

the decisions?” and with the competing personalities of the

President and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles.1 This

essay, moving beyond these relevant but largely superficial

historical questions, will focus specifically on President

Eisenhower’s decision to intervene militarily in Lebanon on

July 15, 1958 at the request of Lebanon’s President, Camille

Chamoun (“Operation Blue Bat”). In the context of the Cold

War, the decline of British and French influence in the

region, and the emergence of the forces of Arab nationalism

inspired by Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, “Operation Blue Bat”

has received necessary but underdeveloped attention from

historians of American relations with the Arab world.

This intervention has appeared, primarily, as an episode

within wider studies of the Cold War or U.S. relations with

the Third World, discussed almost exclusively in terms of U.S.

1 E.g. Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden-Handed Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (NewYork: Basic Books 1982); Richard Immerman, ‘Eisenhower and Dulles: Who Madethe Decisions?,’ Political Psychology, 1:2 (Autumn 1979), pp. 21-38.

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material aims (like stable oil supplies) revealed in

documentation surrounding Lebanon’s 1958 political crisis.2 It

has, broadly, either been framed as an attempt to counter

Soviet influence in the region; critically examined as an

example of “the rhetoric of anticommunism” concealing how

“revolutionary nationalism was the real threat to U.S.

interests”; or been analysed through a ‘middle ground’

approach, describing the President’s inability to distinguish

between communist and nationalist movements in the Middle

East.3 In simple terms, the questions that historians have

primarily addressed are whether “Operation Blue Bat” was aimed

at communism or independent nationalism; and whether it was a

success, failure or miscalculation.

Although these questions are undoubtedly relevant, this

essay will take a more nuanced approach. It will, by analysing

Eisenhower’s underlying currents of thinking from the Suez

Crisis of 1956 until the authorisation of “Operation Blue Bat”

2 For these “wider studies”, see Richard J. Barnet, Intervention and Revolution:The United States in the Third World (London: MacGibbon & Kee Ltd. 1970), pp. 132-153; see also William Stivers, America’s Confrontation with Revolutionary Change in theMiddle East, 1948-83 (New York: St Martin’s Press 1986). 3 The critical approach is quoted in Douglas Little, ‘His Finest Hour?Eisenhower, Lebanon and the 1958 Middle East Crisis’, Diplomatic History, 20:1(Winter 1996), p. 53; for the sympathetic anti-Soviet view, see HerbertParmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades, (New York: Macmillan 1972), p. 574;for the ‘middle ground’ approach, see Robert W. Stookey, America and the ArabStates: An Uneasy Encounter, (New York: Wiley 1975), pp. 147-148.

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– made apparent in his Public Papers and in the State

Department’s Foreign Relations of the United States series4 – reveal that

while he publicly exaggerated a communist threat to conceal

his geopolitical concerns of Nasser’s populism and threats to

Middle Eastern oil, he was not engaging in a calculated

conspiracy against Arab nationalism. Eisenhower, it will be

argued, was unsure of the efficacy of military intervention,

but determined that President Chamoun’s request put American

credibility at stake – that a failure to respond would

precipitate a major decline in American influence not just in

Lebanon but in the entire Muslim world. He believed this not

only because the events of the 1930s demonstrated to him the

ramifications of “appeasement”, but also because of his and

his advisors’ deep-rooted cultural stereotyping of Arabs as

overly emotional, ignorant and susceptible to anti-American

propaganda. The originality of this essay, therefore, will be

its consideration not just of Eisenhower’s material

geopolitical motivations, but also defining ideas like the

4 E.g. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1957,(Washington, D.C.: GPO 1958); Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter FRUS],1958-60: Volume XI, Lebanon and Jordan (Washington, D.C.: GPO 1992).

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“Munich Analogue” and the impact of “American Orientalism” in

shaping policy towards the Arab world.5

A cursory reading of Eisenhower’s thinking in the build-

up to “Operation Blue Bat” suggests that his overriding

concern was creeping Soviet influence in the Middle East. With

Britain, France and Israel forced to retreat from their attack

on Egypt in November 1956, the President repeatedly warned his

leading advisors that the resulting “vacuum” in the region

“must be filled by the United States before it is filled by

Russia.” “At all costs”, he asserted, “the Soviets must be

prevented from seizing a mantle of world leadership through a

false but convincing exhibition of concern for smaller

nations.”6 This formed the basis of the “Eisenhower Doctrine”

of January 5, 1957, which pledged U.S. economic, political and

even military support to any Middle Eastern state threatened

by international communism.7 Camille Chamoun of Lebanon –

almost immediately after the pro-western Iraqi monarchy was5 Term borrowed from Douglas Little, American Orientalism: The United States and theMiddle East since 1945, (Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press2002).6 Memorandum of a Meeting, White House, Washington, D.C., January 1, 1957(drafted by L. Arthur Minnich), FRUS, 1955-57: Volume XII, Near East Region; Iran; Iraq,(Washington, D.C.: GPO 1991), p. 433; Memorandum by the President, November1, 1956, FRUS, 1955-57: Volume XVI, Suez Crisis, July 26-December 31, 1956, (Washington,D.C.: GPO 1990), pp. 924-925. 7 The Eisenhower Doctrine is based on a Special Message to the Congress byPresident Eisenhower on the Middle East, January 5, 1957, Public Papers, 1957,pp. 6-16.

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deposed in a coup – would become the only Arab leader to

invoke the Eisenhower Doctrine on July 14, 1958, requesting

American military intervention to protect his regime.

Eisenhower accepted, promising to counter “a pattern of

conquest with which we became familiar during the period of

1945 to 1950… the taking over a nation by means of indirect

aggression.” He announced that international communism had,

“under the cover of fomented civil strife”, attempted to take

over Greece in 1947 and successfully taken over China in 1949

– now “Lebanon was selected to become a victim.”8 This claim –

that Eisenhower intervened to check the threat of

international communism in July 1958 – warrants close

scrutiny.

Crucially, the President’s public statements did not

reflect the assessment of his own embassy in Beirut.

Ambassador Robert McClintock consistently maintained that,

although Nasser – himself far from representing “international

communism” – encouraged the anti-government forces in Lebanon,

the “root cause of Lebanon’s present difficulties was domestic

origin.” The “civil strife” described by Eisenhower was not

8 Statement by the President Following the Landing of United States Marinesat Beirut, July 15, 1958, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D.Eisenhower, 1958, (Washington, D.C.: GPO 1959), p.555.

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the result of international communism, but Chamoun’s attempts

to amend the Lebanese constitution in order to extend his

presidential term – America’s ally was “a hard-pressed,

stubborn and desperate man who will not admit to himself that

one of the root causes of his difficulty has been his refusal

to clarify [the] issue of re-election.”9 Chamoun’s claim that

foreign communists had infiltrated Lebanon was also firmly

refuted by the United Nations Observer group installed in June

1958: Secretary General Hammarskjold privately warned

America’s ambassador to the UN that the group’s findings would

“explode the whole government case.”10 This evidence calls in

to question the public justifications given by Eisenhower.

Several historians, on this basis, have suggested that

Eisenhower, due to his passionate anti-Soviet stance, failed

to distinguish between communist and nationalist movements in

the Middle East, crystallising his commitment to conservative

regimes like Chamoun’s.11 However, Eisenhower’s assertion in

9 Telegram from the Embassy in Lebanon to the Department of State(McClintock), Beirut, June 2, 1958, FRUS, 1958-60: Vol. XI, p. 87; Telegram fromthe Embassy in Lebanon to the Department of State, Beirut (McClintock), May24, 1958, FRUS 1958-60: Vol XI, p. 75.10 Memorandum from the Representative at the UN (Lodge) to the Secretary ofState, New York, June 26, 1958, FRUS 1958-60: Vol XI, p. 176.11 E.g. Stookey, America and the Arab States, p. 148; and Gail E. Meyer, Egypt and theUnited States: The Formative Years, (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Press1980), p. 19.

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his memoirs – that “[b]ehind everything was our deep-seated

conviction that the Communists were principally responsible

for the ‘trouble’ in Lebanon”12 – has since been proven false.

In June 1958, he told his close advisors that intervening on

Chamoun’s behalf “would be asking for even more rebellion”

because Chamoun himself “provided the spark in the present

situation.”13 Eisenhower even privately admitted that

intervention in Lebanon was difficult to justify precisely

because there was “no hard intelligence” of foreign communist

involvement and “our Middle East Doctrine had been directed

only against external aggression.”14 Hence, he, like

McClintock, was fully aware that international communism was

not threatening the territorial integrity of Lebanon: his

public statements were fundamentally misleading. It is,

therefore, important to examine the motivations that he was

able to conceal through his rhetoric of Soviet “aggression”.

One such motivation was the need to check Nasser’s Arab

nationalism and its potential for undermining stable oil

12 Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956-1961 (New York:Doubleday 1965), p. 266.13 Memorandum of a Conversation, White House, Washington, D.C., June 9, 1958(drafted by William Dale), FRUS, 1958-60: Vol. XI, p. 105.14 Memorandum of a Conference with the President, White House, Washington,D.C., July 14, 1958 (drafted by Andrew Goodpaster), ibid, p. 223; andMemorandum of a Conversation, White House, Washington, D.C., June 15, 1958(drafted by John Hanes), ibid, p. 136.

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supplies from the region. Oil supplies dominated the

President’s thinking during and after the Suez Crisis,

prompting the establishment of an Emergency Middle Eastern Oil

Committee in August 1956 and forming the focus of his

discussions with the British Prime Minister at a high-level

conference in Bermuda in March 1957.15 After Nasser

nationalised the Suez Canal Company, a National Intelligence

Estimate (N.I.E.) issued the reassurance that “Nasser intends

to avoid Soviet domination”, but also warned that his action

“will encourage future moves toward early nationalisation or

other action against foreign-owned pipelines and petroleum

facilities.”16 This informed Eisenhower’s subsequent thinking:

direct confrontation with Nasser would be counter-productive,

but the Egyptian leader could not be allowed to spread his

message of Arab unity and independence in a way that would

undermine U.S. economic interests. This concern was to play a

surprisingly prominent role in convincing Eisenhower to

intervene in relatively oil-deprived Lebanon.

15 For the Bermuda Conference, see Agreed United States-United KingdomPosition Paper, Washington, D.C., March 16, 1957, FRUS, 1955-57: Vol. XII, pp.460-461; for the establishment of the Emergency Committee, see Memorandumof a Conversation, Washington, D.C., August 12, 1956 (drafted by Minnich),FRUS, 1955-57: Vol. XVI, pp. 192-193. 16 Special National Intelligence Estimate (S.N.I.E.), July 31, 1956, FRUS,1955-57: Vol. XVI, pp. 79-80.

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The President’s discussions with his main advisors in the

lead-up to “Operation Blue Bat” illustrate the degree to which

oil supplies influenced his thinking. After the coup in Iraq,

Eisenhower dramatically implored Congressional leaders to

endorse Chamoun’s request for intervention because “to lose

this area by inaction would be far worse than the loss in

China, because of the strategic position and resources of the

Middle East.”17 In a conversation with Vice President Nixon the

following day, upon authorisation of “Operation Blue Bat”,

Eisenhower stated that “the present incident comes about by

the struggle of Nasser” to “get the income and the power” from

control of the Middle East’s “vitally needed petroleum

supplies.” “Somewhere along the line”, he said, “we have got

to face up to the issue.” Nixon agreed, but cautioned that

“you cannot allow it to appear that the Mid East countries are

simply a pawn in the big power contest for their resources”;

instead encouraging the President to mention in his public

statement the historical precedent of “indirect” communist

aggression against small nations.18 This, of course, was

17 Memorandum of a Conference, White House, Washington, D.C., July 14, 1958(drafted by Goodpaster), FRUS 1958-60: Vol. XI, p. 214.18 Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation, White House, Washington, D.C.,July 15, 1958 (drafted anonymously), ibid, pp. 244-245.

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exactly how Eisenhower framed the intervention. He was, in

this sense, merely invoking “international communism” as a

pretext: he sent American marines to Lebanon to confront the

Nasser-inspired Arab nationalists who were posing a potential

threat to western control of Middle Eastern resources.

While it is tempting, as a result, to portray “Operation

Blue Bat” as a typical example of the centrality of oil in

driving American relations with the Arab world – an argument

emphasised by historians and political scientists inspired by

the ‘New Left’– the President’s motivations cannot be reduced

to this economically determinist logic.19 Firstly, it is

noteworthy that both Eisenhower and his cabinet were concerned

that military intervention in Lebanon would disrupt rather

than secure oil supplies. Indeed, one of the President’s main

initial reasons for opposing the British, French and Israeli

attack on Egypt in 1956 was that “if we really get the Arabs

sore at all of us, they could embargo all oil.”20 Moreover, in

May 1958, John Foster Dulles specifically warned Eisenhower

19 Examples of such scholarship include Stivers, America’s Confrontation withRevolutionary Change; and Simon Bromley, American Hegemony and World Oil: The Industry,the State System, and the World Economy, (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania StateUniversity Press 1991).20Memorandum of Discussion at the 303rd Meeting of the National SecurityCouncil, Washington, D.C., November 8, 1956 (drafted by S. EverettGleason), FRUS, 1955-57: Vol. XVI, p. 1075.

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that intervention in Lebanon could result in reprisals against

key oil pipelines in Syria, and that “there was a strong

possibility that the Canal would be closed to American and

British shipping” precipitating “a new and major oil crisis.”21

Such concerns were reiterated in American intelligence reports

as late as June.22 With Eisenhower’s own advisors and

intelligence agencies warning him that “Operation Blue Bat”

could seriously threaten the stability of oil supplies, it

becomes important to question whether his motives can be

reduced to these economic concerns.

In this regard, Eisenhower’s decision-making appears

increasingly puzzling: he was supporting a President whom he

had identified as a primary source of Lebanon’s problems and

was apparently neglecting his own well-established fear that

oil supplies would suffer “if we get the Arabs sore at all of

us.” These paradoxical circumstances invite closer attention

not just to Eisenhower’s geopolitical motivations, but also to

the main ideas shaping his decision-making. Shifting to this

approach, historian Douglas Little argues that Eisenhower

21 Memorandum of a Conversation, White House, Washington, D.C., May 13, 1958(drafted by William Rountree), FRUS, 1958-60: Vol. XI, p. 47.22 See S.N.I.E., June 5, 1958, “Consequences of Possible US Courses ofAction Respecting Lebanon”, ibid, pp. 93-98.

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intervened in Lebanon “for the same reason that Lyndon Johnson

would intervene in Vietnam in 1964: credibility.”23 Concerns

with credibility were, indeed, pervasive in the

administration’s thinking after the pledge of the Eisenhower

Doctrine. In June 1958, for instance, a N.I.E. warned that,

despite the limited external threats to Chamoun’s regime,

“friends and enemies of the West, alike would believe” – if

Eisenhower did not accept a public request from Chamoun –

“that the US had proved itself unwilling to come to the aid of

its declared ally and friend, and that it had capitulated to

Nasser.” “Anti-Nasser elements”, a later estimate surmised,

“would probably conclude that they could not rely on US

support in the future.”24 These ideas of American credibility

and prestige became central to the President’s decision to

authorise “Operation Blue Bat.”

The documentary evidence of this is clear and extensive.

The coup in Iraq prompted Camille Chamoun to angrily tell

Ambassador McClintock that “‘[y]our Government’ had

consistently underestimated this warning of danger in [the]

Middle East”, demanding marines in Beirut within forty-eight

23 Little, ‘His Finest Hour?’ p.53. 24 S.N.I.E., June 5, 1958, FRUS, 1958-60: Vol. XI, p. 94; S.N.I.E., June 14, 1958,FRUS, 1958-60: Vol. XII, p. 121.

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hours.25 The same day, CIA Director Allen Dulles told

Eisenhower that the King of Saudi Arabia had “demand[ed]

action at once, stating that if the United States and United

Kingdom do not act now they are finished as powers in the Mid-

East.” “[I]f we do not respond to the call from Chamoun”, John

Foster Dulles elaborated, “we will suffer the decline and

indeed the elimination of our influence—from Indonesia to

Morocco.” Eisenhower agreed, adding: “this is probably our

last chance to do something in the area.”26 When Senator

William Fulbright challenged the President on the lack of an

international communist threat against Lebanon, he retorted

that the “crucial question is what the victims believe.

Chamoun believes it is Soviet communism that is causing him

his trouble.” “[O]ur action”, he continued, “would be a symbol

of American fortitude and readiness to take risks to defend

the values of the free world.” 27 American credibility was

clearly seen to be at stake in Lebanon. Eisenhower was

motivated, overwhelmingly, by a fear of psychological defeat:

he felt that an unwillingness to aid the increasingly

25 Telegram from the Embassy in Lebanon to the Department of State(McClintock), Beirut, July 14, 1958, FRUS, 1958-60: Vol. XI, pp. 207-208.26 Memorandum of a Conference, White House, Washington, D.C., July 14, 1958(drafted by Goodpaster), ibid, p. 212.27 Ibid, p. 223.

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desperate Chamoun would encourage further challenges to U.S.

and ‘free world’ interests in the region.

That the President of the world’s leading military power

would express such fear towards the forces of Arab nationalism

(Nasser’s military intelligence budget was only one million

pounds) appears exaggerated, even absurd.28 Yet Eisenhower’s

seemingly irrational sense of vulnerability was strongly

grounded in his perceptions of the lessons of the Second World

War, particularly the “Munich Analogue”, which emphasised the

dangers of “appeasement” and the importance of force in

preventing and checking the ambitions of “dictators.”29

Eisenhower referred, in his speech on the day of the marine

landing, to “the 1930s” and how “the League of Nations became

indifferent to direct and indirect aggression.” “The United

States”, he announced, “is determined that that history shall

not now be repeated.” Justifying the intervention in a letter

to Nikita Khrushchev a week later, he again referred to how

“we do not want to see a repetition of the destruction of the

independence of small nations which occurred during the 1930s28 Nasser gave this figure in a “tendentious discussion” with the AmericanAmbassador to Egypt. See Telegram from the Embassy in Egypt to theDepartment of State (Hare), Cairo, May 20, 1958, ibid, pp. 68-69.29 For a full history of the “Munich Analogue”, see Jeffrey Record, TheSpecter of Munich: Reconsidering the Lessons of Appeasing Hitler, (Washington, D.C.: PotomacBooks 2006).

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and which led to the Second World War.”30 Although the context

of these remarks suggests that the powerful “Munich Analogue”

served merely as another pretext – like “international

communism” – for military intervention, the President and his

main advisors also expressed such sentiments privately.

Among numerous similar allusions, Dulles likened pan-

Arabism to Hitler’s pan-Germanism, while Eisenhower compared

Nasser’s book, Philosophy of the Revolution, to Mein Kampf.31 Despite

such comparisons, Nasser was not seen as a figure capable of

Hitler’s destruction, but was seen to be adopting similar

tactics. In seizing the Suez Canal, Admiral Radford of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff remarked to Eisenhower, it was evident

that “Nasser was trying to be another Hitler”: spreading his

influence by skilfully capitalising on the weakness of his

opponents; punishing “appeasers” in the region.32 Nasser had

already experienced the political victory of the 1956 Suez

War, appeared to have expanded his influence again after the30 Statement by the President Following the Landing of United States Marinesin Beirut, July 15, 1958, Public Papers, 1958, pp. 556-557; Letter to NikitaKhrushchev, July 22, 1958, Public Papers, 1958, p. 561.31 Eisenhower quoted in Memorandum of a Conversation, White House,Washington, D.C., August 12, 1956 (drafted by Minnich), FRUS, 1955-57: Vol. XVI,p. 192; Dulles quoted in Memorandum of a Conversation, Department of State,Washington, D.C., June 23, 1958 (drafted by William Macomber), FRUS, 1958-60:Vol. XI, p. 173.32Memorandum of Discussion at the 292nd Meeting of the National SecurityCouncil (drafted by Marion Boggs), Washington, D.C., August 9, 1956, FRUS,1955-57: Vol. XVI, p. 174.

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Iraqi coup, and was now encouraging the anti-Chamoun rebels in

Lebanon. Thus, Eisenhower was led to believe that although

“the consequences will be bad” if “we do or don’t go in” to

Lebanon, it was “better we took a strong position than a

Munich-type position.”33 In this respect, Eisenhower’s

motivations were not just grounded in material concerns, but

also the strong analogue of “Munich” and the perceived lessons

– discussed at length with his main advisors – of the Second

World War.

The “Munich Analogue”, however, was not the only product

of the Second World War influencing Eisenhower’s thinking. As

Douglas Little observes, “Dwight Eisenhower’s view of the

Muslim world was coloured by his wartime experiences in North

Africa.”34 With the exception of Little, historians have

largely neglected how stereotypes of the Arab world have

influenced U.S. policymakers. Salim Yaqub, for instance, in an

otherwise comprehensive history of the Eisenhower Doctrine,

dismissively asserts that “[a]ny antipathies such officials

may have harboured toward a particular national or ethnic

group would likely have been tempered by a sense of propriety

33 Memorandum of a Conference, White House, Washington, D.C., July 14, 1958(drafted by Goodpaster), FRUS, 1958-60: Volume XI, p. 223.34 Little, American Orientalism, p. 27.

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and fair play.”35 Eisenhower himself exhibited few indications

of “propriety and fair play” when summarising Arab

nationalism, in conversation with his advisors, as “the

emotional demands of the people of the area for independence

and for ‘slapping the white man down’”; or when asserting that

the Arabs were driven to anger and resentment by “an

unconscious jealousy” of America.36 Such paternalistic views of

the Arab world would strongly influence the President’s

thinking when authorising “Operation Blue Bat.”

Though it is difficult to fully illustrate the role of

cultural prejudice in driving the intervention in Lebanon, it

is clear that the administration’s dismissive attitude towards

Arab nationalism fed the perception that Arabs were only

capable of responding to force. As Defence Secretary Wilson

told the President in a National Security Council meeting at

the height of the Suez Crisis, “we must avoid thinking we can

deal with the Arabs as we would deal with businessmen. The

Arabs are moved by emotion and not by the judgements of

businessmen.” The President echoed this sentiment in July35 Salim Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East(Chapel Hill & London: University of California Press 2004), p. 12.36 Memorandum of a Conference, White House, Washington, D.C., July 31, 1956(drafted by Goodpaster), FRUS, 1955-57: Vol. XVI, p. 64; Memorandum of aConference, White House, Washington, D.C., November 9, 1956 (drafted byGoodpaster), FRUS, 1955-57: Vol. XVI, p. 1099.

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1958, expressing his difficulty in attempting “to get at the

underlying Arab thinking”, due to their tendency to “act out

of violence, emotion and ignorance.”37 “Operation Blue Bat”

would serve as a clear message of strength to this volatile

people, checking their irrational desires for “slapping the

white man down.” Ambassador McClintock, when praising the

intervention, provided the clearest summary of this thinking:

if the Arab nationalists opposed to Chamoun were “[l]eft to

their own devices”, he noted, they “might well have let

emotions run away with common sense.”38

Cultural prejudices, therefore, should not be neglected

in examinations of American foreign relations with the Arab

world. This essay has contributed originally to the debate

surrounding Eisenhower’s decision to intervene militarily in

Lebanon by integrating such cultural and psychological

analyses with geopolitical motives. It has not speculated on

the excessively broad questions of the impact or success of

“Operation Blue Bat”, but instead closely scrutinised the main

37Wilson quoted in Memorandum of Discussion at the 303rd Meeting of theNational Security Council, Washington, D.C., November 8, 1956 (drafted byGleason), FRUS, 1955-57: Vol. XVI, p. 1076; Eisenhower quoted in Memorandum of aConference, White House, Washington, D.C., July 23, 1958 (drafted byGoodpaster), FRUS, 1958-60: Volume XII: Near East Region; Iraq; Iran; Arabian Peninsula(Washington, D.C.: GPO 1992), p. 99.38 Telegram from the Embassy in Lebanon to the Department of State, Beirut,November 4, 1958 (McClintock), FRUS, 1958-60: Vol. XI, p. 626.

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ideas and interests expressed by the President from the Suez

Crisis of 1956 to the marine landing in July 1958. It has

demonstrated that he did not simply fail to distinguish

between communism and nationalism, but was fully aware of the

independent nature of both Nasser and the anti-Chamoun rebels

in Lebanon: a fact that has already been addressed, to varying

degrees, by historians of Arab-American relations and critics

of the U.S. approach to the Third World more broadly.

However, as this essay has also demonstrated, the

decision to intervene militarily in Lebanon was taken

extremely hesitantly. Obsessed with the notion of credibility

– due to the ‘lessons’ of the Second World War and his

paternalistic views of Arabs – Eisenhower intervened to

support a regime that was to a large extent endangering rather

than ensuring American interests. Key ideas rather than

material interests can assist in explaining such paradoxical

decision-making processes. In studies of U.S. relations with

the Middle East – a region endowed with crucial economic

resources and defined by deep political volatility – ideas are

easily neglected. Yet Dwight Eisenhower’s approach to the

crisis in Lebanon exemplifies the crucial interplay of

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powerful ideas and geopolitical calculations in the history of

American foreign relations.

Primary Sources:

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Eisenhower, Dwight D., The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956-1961

(New York: Doubleday 1965).

Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1957,

(Washington, D.C.: GPO 1958).

Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1958,

(Washington, D.C.: GPO 1959).

US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955-57:

Volume XVI, Suez Crisis, July 26-December 31, 1956, (Washington, D.C.:

GPO 1990.)

-------- Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955-57: Volume XII, Near East

Region; Iran; Iraq, (Washington, D.C.: GPO 1991).

-------- Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-60: Volume XI, Lebanon

and Jordan (Washington, D.C.: GPO 1992).

-------- Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-60: Volume XII: Near East

Region; Iraq; Iran; Arabian Peninsula (Washington, D.C.: GPO 1992).

Secondary sources:

Barnet, Richard J. Intervention and Revolution: The United States in the Third

World. (London: MacGibbon & Kee Ltd. 1970.)

Bromley, Simon. American Hegemony and World Oil: The Industry, the State

System, and the World Economy, (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State

University Press 1991).

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Greenstein, Fred I. The Hidden-Handed Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader

(New York: Basic Books 1982).

Immerman, Richard. ‘Eisenhower and Dulles: Who Made the

Decisions?’, Political Psychology, 1:2 (Autumn 1979), pp. 21-

38.

Little, Douglas. ‘His Finest Hour? Eisenhower, Lebanon and the

1958 Middle East Crisis’, Diplomatic History, 20:1 (Winter

1996), pp. 27-54.

-------- American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945,

(Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press

2002).

Meyer, Gail E. Egypt and the United States: The Formative Years,

(Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Press 1980).

Parmet, Herbert. Eisenhower and the American Crusades, (New York:

Macmillan 1972).

Record, Jeffrey. The Specter of Munich: Reconsidering the Lessons of

Appeasing Hitler, (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books 2006).

Stivers, William. America’s Confrontation with Revolutionary Change in the

Middle East, 1948-83. (New York: St Martin’s Press 1986.)

Stookey, Robert W. America and the Arab States: An Uneasy Encounter, (New

York: Wiley 1975).

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Yaqub, Salim. Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the

Middle East. (Chapel Hill and London: University of

California Press 2004.)

23