1956, incited by the Administration's rhetoric of rollback, IKE'S very own irresponsible blather, Hungarians revolt, fully expecting American military action, war, to save them.
An expectation IKE and the American government had urgently encouraged.
But the prospect was too much for the American hero.
He watched as the Russians drowned the rebellion in blood.
Or else he had been lying all along, intentionally sacrificing Hungary to claw, a little, at Russia's Warsaw Pact.
Take your pick.
Khrushchev bragged, "We will bury you."
IKE fought only the easiest battles with little or no risk.
He got out of Korea, after all that bloodshed, with nothing better than the status quo ante, and to do that well he had to threaten atomic war.
"IKE fought only the easiest battles with little or no risk"
ReplyDeleteBy and large, on the whole and taken in the round, they're the best ones to fight!
Of course, sometimes you can't choose.
True, if you have to fight at all.
ReplyDeleteBut his tough-guy, rollback rhetoric cost a lot of lives, innocent people who believed him.
Acceptable collateral damage in the propaganda war side of the Cold War, I guess.