Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World

The principal argument advanced by Robert B. Rakove's thoughtful study of U.S. policy toward the nonaligned world is that concerted efforts were made by the Kennedy administration to engage in positive fashion some of its main actors, such as India, Indonesia, and Egypt, in the early 1960s, but this policy was not sustained under Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. Many books have analyzed the bilateral relations between Washington, D.C., and states that endeavored to stay aloof from the Cold War, but here Rakove attempts to deliver a much-needed synthesis that takes seriously Kennedy's rhetoric about the need to win support from the “uncommitted nations” in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa (p. 24). Though acknowledging that Kennedy's Republican predecessor had laid some of the groundwork for this new emphasis in American policy in the latter half of the 1950s, Rakove stresses that while he never institutionalized or articulated a comprehensive policy document, Kennedy was determined—through personal diplomacy, conciliatory gestures, more generous provision of aid, and the fostering of economic development—to pursue an approach of engagement with nonaligned leaders. Over disputed colonial remnants, such as western New Guinea, Rakove examines how the Kennedy administration tried to steer a more sympathetic policy and was prepared to override the wishes of its European allies. Substantial food aid was offered to Egypt and India, and in Africa stronger criticisms of colonialism were voiced by administration officials

Administration (probate law · Argument (complex analysis · Cold war · Colonialism · Diplomacy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Principal (computer security · Rhetoric · Sociology · Successor cardinal · Theology · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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