Guest Post: Ike in China and Vietnam

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History.

 

June 18, 1960 - Eisenhower lands in Peking

Upon his arrival in Peking, US President Eisenhower was warmly greeted as an old friend and WW2 war-time comrade by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.

Fifteen years earlier, Chiang's Kuomintang Forces had liberated the city and won the Second Sino-Japanese War. The following November, he ordered the invasion of Communist-controlled Manchuria. This brief campaign resolving to the ongoing civil war ended the following March at the Soviet border with the capture of Enemy of the State, Mao Zedong.

Both men had worked together to defeat the Japanese, but, although they toasted victory as unlikely allies, there could only be one ultimate winner. Mao was put on trial and executed by hanging. Despite Nazi war criminals undergoing the same brutal fate in Nuremberg, events in Peking shattered brittle US-Soviet relations. These were widely considered a causal factor in the escalation of the Cold War, and Chiang was to blame. His despicable reputation for peace-time ruthlessness and corruption only grew from this point forward. By 1960, he was a super-sized version of the warlords he had struggled with during the pre-WW2 years. An ageing dictator that discredited FDR's vision of the UN by occupying his seat on the Security Council, he clung to power as a US puppet. In some quarters, pictures of these two old WW2 relics only raised concerns about the vitality of the anti-Communist alliance.

The trouble was the tragic events in Manchuria had only foreshadowed insidious developments in Korea and Vietnam that had played out during Eisenhower's two-term presidency. Korea had been divided in 1945 to two occupation zones after substantial unrest under the United States Army Military Government in Korea. Elections brought the zones back together, and, after Soviet troops withdrew in 1948, communist leaders were chased out before the departure of American troops in 1949. Eisenhower's next stop was Saigon, a capital city in even greater disrepute and turmoil. There, too, the trial and execution of Communist Leader Ho Chi Minh was an aspiration of President Ngo Dinh Diem, mirroring the treatment of Mao.

Eisenhower landed in Saigon to find the newly formed Republic of Vietnam on the verge of a civil war that had been long in the making. Following Indochina's independence from France, President Ngo Dinh Diem ousted Emperor Bao-Dai and set up the Republic. But, he faced an altogether more determined opponent in the North, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh and refugee Chinese Communists. There was serious trouble brewing in other quarters, too. With corruption rife in Saigon, the country was threatening to break apart into factions. Much like China where Eisenhower had just left, the shattered post-war state of 1945 had yet to evolve as Diem and Chiang were heading for the bunker.

Diem desperately needed US support to deal with the insurgents and prevent the outbreak of a civil war. Having formed the Republic, he lacked the emperor's loyal military at this vital time. Eisenhower, however, was keen to avoid unpleasant surprises in his final year of office and wanted little more than an American ally against communism in Asia. To cynics, it appeared that America would have been better off supporting Emperor Bao-Dai with a loyal military, but, of course, that pro-monarchist strategy was politically unacceptable in Washington. The cause of liberty was difficult to defend when the local populace had no experience with or understanding of democratic representative government. Consequently, the Viet Minh looked like liberators, and Diem was in deep trouble.

With former British colonies such as Singapore and Malaya facing a bright future, American foreign policy seemed to be propping up dictatorships that were moving even further from democracy. For the imperialists with bitter memories of the Atlantic Charter such as Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan, it was a cynical outcome that left a very nasty taste in their mouths. Given Eisenhower's obtuse position over the Suez Canal, America's role as a global policeman was becoming increasingly controversial and even divisive.

The real consequence of Chiang winning the Chinese Civil War was that the Soviets were looking beyond Asia to expand communism in Africa and the Americas. Closer to home, the Cuban Revolution had brought communist leadership to power less than ninety miles from the shores of Florida. The overthrow of an American puppet dictator did not bode well for Chiang or Diem, and this issue would raise its ugly head during an election year as America entered a new political cycle.

Despite (or perhaps, because of) the warm welcome he had received, Eisenhower was deeply troubled by his diplomatic tour of Asia. He returned to the United States with a desire to champion democracy and restore America's moral leadership. With the recent release of West Side Story, he was inspired to sponsor Puerto Rican representation in Washington. But due to the size of the population, he would need to look at constitutional alternatives to solutions such as Alaska, which had one-tenth of the people.

Ike also threw himself into Dick Nixon's presidential campaign. This change of heart was because he had determined that avoiding regime change in three capitals (Washington, Peking, and Saigon) was absolutely necessary to prevent his 'Domino Theory' from playing out in his successor's term of office. Ironically it was at this very moment that the CIA sought his clandestine approval for forcing regime change in Cuba. This secret ops mission began a series of events that would lead to the outbreak of World War Three with the Soviet Union.