ABSTRACT
US foreign policy makers in the New Frontier regarded struggles and wars of national liberation, by which they meant only those so designated by the Soviets or other communist powers or characterizing themselves as Marxist-Leninist in inspiration, as evil, nefarious, and capable of contagious spread. The issue of US security commitments around the world was confronted by the New Frontier simultaneously with its tackling of the issue of national liberation wars. The formal treaty commitments undertaken by the United States from 1950 to 1968 and ratified by the Senate as required by the Constitution are the clearest and least questionable cases of commitments. In the postwar forties, Stalin’s one great megalomaniac obsession was power at home; only Eastern Europe, including of course East Germany, was of real concern abroad. The impression of impending danger in Vietnam had been reinforced by Vice President Johnson’s findings on his visit in the spring of 1961.
