From Hungary and Suez to Cuba

Hungary

Eisenhower was the President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. His main focus for his 8 year presidency was to ultimately have peace with the USSR and end the cold war. This meant that he was very passive in his approach to situations in the cold war. For example, when Khrushchev's secret speech was leaked to the world, this lead to countries like Poland protesting and striking to achieve their own way of communism like Khrushchev said and they were ultimately successful as long as they stayed loyal to Moscow. Hungary, however, wanted to be more like Yugoslavia and be independent. Moscow couldn't allow this as it could be seen as a sign of weakness and others might follow and therefore crushed the movement, the Hungarian president Imre Nagy,  pleaded for US intervention but it never came. This showed Eisenhower's reluctance to get involved in contested issues in fear of starting a war.

Suez 

During this time the US were aware of the growing soviet influence in the Middle East. In late 1955,  the Egyptians had negotiated an arms deal with the Czechs. The initial response was to offer the Egyptian leader, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, help to build the Aswan Dam that would harness the power of the lower Nile. By February 1956, Nasser was ready to conclude the deal. However Dulles, the Secretary of State, had trouble getting people on board with the idea in the United States.  Dulles stopped pushing when in April 1956 Nasser formed a military alliance with Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen and refused to end the Czech arms deal. When Nasser withdrew recognition for Chiang Kai-shek and recognized Communist China in May, Dulles decided to end his involvement in the Aswan Dam project, but he did not make the decision public. Then, on 19th July, 1956, at the moment the Egyptian foreign minister was arriving in Washington to discuss the project, Dulles announced that America was withdrawing its support from the Aswan Dam. Nasser’s immediate response was to seize the Suez Canal, this gave him prestige and the $25-million annual profit from the canal operation. This angered the British and French as they relied on the canal for oil, they worried that Nasser would stop them from using the canal and it looked bad on them. The Americans just wanted to preserve their oil interests, but the British and French only wanted complete control of the canal. Dulles, fearing Arab reaction, was unwilling to restore the colonial powers and was in any event strongly opposed to colonialism. Dulles had damaged the American position in France, Britain and NATO, lost a chance to tie Nasser to the West, allowed the Soviet Union to begin preparation for a naval base in the Mediterranean and failed to gain any more Arab support. Dulles began negotiations to help Nasser run the canal without the British or French. Frustrated by this the Europeans decided to invade Egypt with the help of Israel. They did not tell the United States and this lead to distrust among them. 
Khrushchev was very similar to Eisenhower in that he wanted an end to the war in his time, for example, he turned down a request for aid from Egypt as he trusted Eisenhower to keep his involvement to a minimum and didn't want to increase tensions. He was however backed by people more extreme than Eisenhower was and had to at least keep up the guise of  Soviet strength as to appease his own people as well as the aggressive Chinese.

Cuba

The US was heavily involved in Cuban affairs.  In January 1959, Fidel Castro, forced his way into power . At first the general public in the United States welcomed Castro. Castro helped by putting leading Cuban liberals in important posts on his Cabinet. American supporters of Castro expected him to run the country well, apply many reforms and look to the United States for leadership. However, communists soon gained power under Castro. Khrushchev welcomed Castro as a new force in Latin America  and in February 1960 signed a trade agreement to exchange Cuban sugar for Soviet oil and machinery. Four months later the United States eliminated the Cuban sugar quota and then in 1961 Eisenhower formally severed diplomatic relations with Cuba. In 1961 Eisenhower was replaced in office by John.F.Kennedy and all actions were put on hold.



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