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The Cold War on the Periphery, by Robert J. McMahon
This study began, as most do, with a few deceptively simple and straightforward questions. How and why, I wanted to know, was the Cold War extended into the Third World? How and why did the infant nations of India and Pakistan, situated in a corner of the globe long consigned to the margins of international affairs, become intense objects of superpower competition? What combination of threats and interests prompted U.S. officials to invest such substantial amounts of time, energy, and money in countries that possessed few tangible economic or strategic assets? I wondered further what wider insights about postwar American foreign policy might be gained by an intensive investigation of American attitudes and behavior toward one particular part of the Third World periphery. The study that follows seeks to answer those questions.
All scholarship inevitably rests on a fragmentary historical record, a truism rendered painfully obvious to any scholar working in the contemporary period. Although this book draws on a massive amount of archival and manuscript material, important documents remain classified, especially for the 1961Ñ-1965 period. Chapter 8 and 9, consequently, are constructed from a thinner documentary base than the other chapters. Gaps in the available record also prevent a detailed analysis of the role of intelligence in American policy making throughout this entire period. It is a particularly unfortunate hole in view of the critical role that intelligence operations came to play in the Pakistani-American relationship, but it is one that afflicts virtually every account of Cold War diplomacy.
This study has been made possible by the generous assistance of numerous individuals and institutions. I only regret that space prohibits my mentioning each of them by name.
The librarians and archivists who have made it possible for me to sift through the mountains of documents produced by the modern national security state deserve a special word of thanks. In particular, I thank Sally Mark, Will Mahoney, Gerry Haines, and Cathy Nicastro for their expert assistance at the National Archives. At the Truman Library, Dennis Bilger was exceptionally helpful, as were David Haight at the Eisenhower Library, Suzanne Forbes at the Kennedy Library, and David Humphrey at the Johnson Library.
I also gratefully acknowledge the assistance and advice of archivists and librarians at the University of Florida, the University of Virginia, Yale University, Princeton University, the University of North Carolina, the University of Arkansas, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, the Hoover Library, the Ohio Historical Society, the Minnesota State Historical Society, the Washington Navy Yard, the Washington National Record Center, and the Library of Congress. Outside the United States, I was aided by the knowledgeable staffs at the British Public Record Office, the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library in New Delhi.
I am indebted to my colleagues and former colleagues in the History Department at the University of Florida, both for the stimulating intellectual climate they have helped create here over the past decade and for the friendly encouragement and support they have offered to this project in particular. Dave Colburn, Kermit Hall, Jeff Adler, Tom Gallant, Bob Zieger, Pat Geary, and Darrett Rutman have all been extremely helpful. And I am deeply indebted to Jeff Adler and Tom Gallant for also patiently reading a draft of this manuscript and making a host of constructive suggestions for its improvement.
Scholars at other institutions have also been unusually generous with their time and expertise. Melvyn Leffler at the University of Virgina has been an invaluable friend and critic since the inception of this project, offering wise counsel at virtually every stage. His incisive comments on a final draft of the manuscript proved especially beneficial. Gary R. Hess at Bowling Green State University and Dennis Merrill at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, also carefully read drafts of the manuscript, drawing on their expertise in Indo-American relations to advance a series of helpful suggestions. Other scholars who have read and commented on parts of this manuscript include Thomas G. Paterson, David Thelen, Lawrence Kaplan, Andrew Rotter, Thom Thornton, Howard Wriggins, Anita Inder Singh, George Herring, and Warren Kimball. I thank them all.
For critically important research and travel funding, I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Division for Sponsored Research at the University of Florida, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Harry S. Truman Library Institute, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, and the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation. The Fulbright Program in India, under the expert guidance of Sharada Nayak, made possible my participation in a series of stimulating seminars on Indo-American relations in January 1991. The seminars, held in New Delhi, Hyderabad, and Madras, allowed me to share my ideas and the fruits of my research with a most distinguished group of Indian scholars. I have profited enormously from the experience, as has this book, and I thank my Indian friends for their hospitality, their insights, and for their unsurpassed personal and professional courtesies.
The secretarial staff at the University of Florida's History Department has facilitated my completion of this project in countless ways. I have benefited enormously from the good humor, dependability, and professionalism of Joyce Phillips, Betty Corwine, Ann McDaniel, and Allyson Butts. Patti Pienkos, in particular, has been a tremendous help with her word-processing skills. I am also indebted to Kate Wittenberg and Jonathan Director of Columbia University Press for their expert guidance and assistance in shepherding this manuscript through the publication process. It has been my good fortune to work with a pair of unusually attentive and knowledgeable editors. I am especially grateful to Kate Wittenberg for her unflagging commitment to this project, for her constructive suggestions for its improvement, and for her constant encouragement and good humor.
My greatest debt is to my family. For my sons, Tommy and Michael, this book has been a silent and occasionally not-so-silent presence for the entirety of their young lives. They have had to tolerate prolonged absences and frequent preoccupations, and have managed to do so with as much understanding and good humor as their youthful spirits could muster. They have forced me to keep my intellectual pursuits in perspective; and, even if they are almost certainly responsible for delaying the completion of this book, the time I have spent with them has been rich compensation indeed. Alison has lived with this book even longer than they have. For the countless things she has done to make its completion possible, and to make my life so much richer, I dedicate it to her with love.
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