The Falling Domino Theory, Part 2: Dominos in Asia and Eastern Europe

Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were not the only dominoes that the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations were concerned about.

While the French were preparing to have their Dien Bien Phued, there were communist revolutions in Malaya, Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea and elsewhere.

Truman faced 2 years of horrific war in Korea creating the real stalemate of the 20^th century. That treaty is only a cease fire. As of January 2014, 28,500 US troops[1] are still stationed there to keep Communist North Korea from trying to capture the South. Kennedy faced the specter of Communist Cuba 90 miles off the Florida coast.

Courtesy world atlas.com/

After World War II, Europe was in ruins. Asia was devastated as well. “The Soviet Armies that followed the retreating Germans into Eastern Europe stayed, and the Iron Curtain[2] clanged down across the continent”[3].

Locked under Communist rule were the nations of Poland, Hungary, Albania, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and ten other states that were absorbed into the Soviet Union[4]. 

courtesy http://www.yourchildlearns.com

Stalin stated, “The reason there is now no communist government in Paris is because in the circumstances of 1945 the Soviet Army was not able to reach French soil”[5].

Many in the United States felt betrayed. After the US provided $billions in war materials & food & other supplies for the Soviet’s defense against the Nazi war machine, the Soviets became worse than the Nazis. There was even talk of mass exterminations and of whole groups of people exiled to labor camps in Siberia.

Chairman Mao Zedong

By 1950, only a year after his victory over Chang Kai Shek, Chairman Mao Zedong “exuded tentacles” into ¾ of a dozen Asian countries: Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Malaya and Burma, as well as Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia[6].

Courtesy Nixon Library

Nixon was adamant, “The only way to deal with the communists is to stand up against them. Otherwise they will exploit your politeness as weakness.

They will try to make you afraid and then take advantage of your fears. Fear is the primary weapon of communists”[7].

Adolf Hitler

In the 1930’s, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain found out that appeasement doesn’t work ... the hard way.

Neville Chamberlain

President Gerald R. Ford

Maybe those who scoff at the Domino theory can explain: If there was nothing to the Domino Theory then why did President Ford suffer the indignity of watching the last dominoes fall 2 years after the U.S. left Vietnam, as predicted by Ike in 1954, South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia all fell to Communism. All 3 fell in 1975.

The reactionaries during the Vietnam War made high claims that communism was the form of government the people wanted, yet they ignored the fact that wherever communism established itself, they had to build fences to keep their people in. If communism is so great why did so many people want to escape?

Containing world communism was a logical American foreign policy decision. However, foreign policy became complicated by communist development of nuclear weapons.

In part 3 I will discuss the role nuclear weapons played in the US involvement in the Vietnam War.

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[1] Cappaccio, Tony & Gaouette, Nicole, (January 7, 2014). U.S. Adding 800 Troops for South Korea Citing Rebalance. Bloomberg.com http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2014-01-07/u-s-adding-800-troops-for-south-korea-citing-rebalance.html (print version) 1 November, 2014, para. 2.

[2] Winston Churchill coined the term Iron Curtain in a speech to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940.

[3] Nixon, R.M., (1980). The Real War. New York: Warner Books Inc., pp. 18-19.

[4] Nixon, R.M., (1980). The Real War. New York: Warner Books Inc., p. 19.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Jung, C., Halliday, J. (2005). Mao: The unknown story. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, pp. 370-371.

[7] Nixon, R. M. (1978). The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, p. 131.