Cold War Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139021760.008

7 - Cold War Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon

The New Scholarly Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014

Stephen G. Rabe

Edited by

Frank Costigliola and

Michael J. Hogan

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Stephen G. Rabe: Affiliation:
University of Texas
Frank Costigliola: Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Michael J. Hogan: Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Springfield

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Analyzing the historical literature on the foreign policies of the presidencies of Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon poses logistical and interpretive challenges. In the first edition of America in the World (1995), my essay on Eisenhower included eighty-eight footnotes and cited approximately 250 articles and books. Chester Pach, author of an incisive history of the Eisenhower administration, listed 840 sources on Eisenhower in the masterful bibliographic guide American Foreign Relations since 1600 (2003), edited by Robert L. Beisner. Robert D. Schulzinger’s subsequent chapters on the “Kennedy-Johnson Era” and “Nixon-Kissinger Era” listed 419 and 266 sources respectively. But to examine thoroughly the scholarly literature on a presidential administration, it would also be necessary to consult studies on U.S. relations with Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. For example, the United States was militarily engaged in Vietnam during the four presidencies under review. Schulzinger compiled a chapter on Vietnam with 620 citations for the Beisner bibliographic guide. The scholarly literature has grown exponentially, especially as it pertains to the Johnson and Nixon presidencies. Scholars increasingly have access to newly declassified materials like the 10,000 recorded telephone conversations of President Johnson and the more than 15,000 transcribed telephone conversations of Henry L. Kissinger, President Nixon’s national security advisor and secretary of state.

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Type: Chapter
Information: America in the World
The Historiography of American Foreign Relations since 1941
, pp. 131 - 166

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139021760.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2013

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