In the 1940s and early 1950s, the Cold War convention of containment, which undergirded American involvement in Vietnam, was broadly shared, internalized, at times even fostered, by the United States European allies. This consensus broke down by the 1960s, as successive US administrations saw themselves locked ever more rigidly into Cold War logic which seemed to require going to war to preserve a noncommunist South Vietnam. By contrast, the United States transatlantic allies and partners increasingly came to question the very rationale of US intervention. By the mid-1960s there was a remarkable consensus among government officials across Western Europe on the futility of the central objective of the American intervention in Vietnam of defending and stabilizing a noncommunist (South) Vietnam. European governments refused to send troops to Vietnam. However, West European governments differed considerably in the public attitude they displayed toward US involvement in Vietnam, ranging from France’s vocal opposition to strong if not limitless public support by the British and West German governments. Across Western Europe, the Vietnam War cut deeply into West European domestic politics, aggravated political and societal tensions and diminished the righteousness of the American cause.

America's relationship with the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1968 to 1990 was largely overshadowed by its relations with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the Soviet Union. The United States generally dealt with the GDR only when American interests in Germany and Eastern Europe overlapped. Bonn and Moscow were the major orientation points. The United States regarded the GDR as the Soviet Union's staunchest ally; thus, America's relations with the second German state remained very much a function of the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. For a long time, America was so absorbed with its West German ally that it hardly noticed the other Germany's existence. Washington respected the Bonn government's claim to be the sole representative of the German people and avoided any recognition of the GDR for two decades. In many arenas, America gave West Germany free rein to lead the way in developing relations with East Germany. / The Establishment of Diplomatic Relations: The Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin, the Basic Treaty establishing relations between East and West Germany, and the admission of the two German states to the United Nations paved the way for diplomatic recognition of the GDR by the United States. In September 1974, the United States became one of the last NATO members to enter into diplomatic relations with the GDR. However, initial official contacts had been made at the United Nations in New York in January 1973, followed up in East Berlin in August 1973 and March 1974.

The founding of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in October 1949 came as no surprise to the administration of President Harry S. Truman. The resolution adopted at Potsdam to set up centralized institutions in Germany had come to nothing; in summer 1947 the Russians had created the German Economic Commission in their zone, a body that wielded quasi-governmental powers in many areas; and at the Six Power conference in London in 1948, the Western Allies had resolved to create a West German state. In light of these developments, the American government fully expected the creation of a new state in the eastern part of Germany. Unclear, however, were Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's objectives in choosing to establish a German government in the Soviet occupation zone. Whereas some observers within the American military government interpreted the founding of the GDR as the start of a radical transformation of the Soviet zone into a “German people's republic,” there were others who warned that Stalin was still pursuing ambitions for Germany as a whole, that his sights were still set on the Western occupation zones with their greater economic value, and that he would use the new GDR merely as a pawn in future negotiations on German unity. The greatest fear of the American government was that Moscow might manage to establish a noncommunist yet pro-Moscow government with aspirations for all of Germany that would extend Soviet influence to encompass the entire country.