A major policy program which tried to answer this question – and link to the New Look was Operation Solarium

The operation set up three teams, or task forces – team A and C regarded general policy towards fighting the cold war and Team B regarded the US approach to nuclear weapons

Team A were to were to work on roll back but at the same time peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union, it was about attempting to liberate Sovet satellites through covert operations.

C- destruction of the Soviet Union –about overthrow f the soviet Union, removal of iron curtain, the plan was for in 5 years Korea,Germany united – China to nationalists, 1965 satellites would fall however there was no real plan regarding how this was going to occur

US policy was a mixture of different methods, most important was to prevent a hot war

After Solarium was put in place it became more and more obvious that task force c’s work was impossible, the US didn’t really know how to bring about C, shows there was confusion about how to fight the Cold War, Task force A basically started to gain prevalence

This meant a pull back from overly aggressive fighting of the Cold War, prevention of the spread of communism became the main focus

Thus peaceful coexistence becomes the main accepted policy by the Americans

Covert operations and intelligent operations begin to be accepted as the main way to fight the cold war – move away from aggressive roll back

So let’s look a little more closely at events between East and West in the aftermath of Stalin’s death. Important to look at this within the perspective of greater Soviet openness and general moves away from open confrontation.

As we have discussed the explosion of Soviet nuclear weapons pushed the two great powers away from Hot War. Discussions began to emerge regarding the controlling and restricting of weapons. Both sides try to show they were looking for peace but at same time threatened by aggression of the other

Young is unsure whether these moves were genuine or not but they needed to show the public they were pulling back from the idea of Nuclear war (dualism of the cold war – say one thing, do another).

As we have seen before Molotov put forward his idea of a peace offensive – way of coming to the table, trying to find solutions. Several ways this was shown. UN disarmament commission, Malenkov calls for a body…. Rejected by the United States

Another Soviet move in 1954 – regarded no first use agreement - this was again rejected by the United States

How did the Americans react to these moves by the Soviets

Eisenhower plays a dualist game during this period, on the one side he makes moves to the public which state he wants peace and disarmament but at the same time he seriously doubts this can happen (and we have seen American moves to fight a cold and Hot war continued).

Division between the American hierarchy –

State department sought some sort of progress regarding disarmament, the defence department didn’t want to talk about it, state department wanted inspections, the defence department very dubious about it.

Disarmament dilemma – Eisenhower works between the two different schools – has to show he wants arms control but not sure if that is what he wants

Many believe E wanted the Soviets to move properly before he did

Eisenhower’s main move regarding arms reduction was his chance for Peace speech in April 1953 which he gave to the american society of Newspaper editors. As part of the speech he mentioned a five point plan for arms reduction – have a look on the next page and generally discussed the imporatance of speech between the two major powers, he talked about Korea, Germany and other issues

Of the issues which needed to be solved – debates over what to do with Germany – we will look at these more later, what should be done with the division of Austria – it had been divided into four occupying zones just like Germany

Eisenhower’s speech has an empty element about it

Second idea was the idea of Dulles – large zone in Europe with restricted armaments and for the US and Soviets to withdraw from Western and Eastern Europe – would never be accepted

In December 1953 – E gave his atoms for peace speech – in it E proposed that certain amount of nuclear items be handed over to an atomic agency – again not a very big step by E – symbolic

Difficult to know how genuine the plans were on both sides – were they actually just in order to win the cold war or not?