ABSTRACT
President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s basic policy toward Asia differed from that of his predecessor only in emphasis. It focused more intently on the containment of communism and was less tolerant of nonalignment. Eisenhower, Vice President Richard Nixon, and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles all made public statements branding neutralism in the Cold War as immoral. Eisenhower made basic foreign policy decisions in the National Security Council (NSC), in which the administration’s top civilian and military leaders participated on an equal basis. The NSC’s policy statement noted the strategic importance of Indonesia’s location, population, and natural resources and found that its loss to communist control “would have serious security implications for the United States and the rest of the free world.” New Guinea, or Irian as it is known in Indonesia, was Sukarno’s favorite topic in his public speeches and virtually every conversation with US officials. Sukarno’s visit to Washington seemed to have been a success for both parties.
