President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles greeting South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem in Washington D.C., 1957
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
WE HAVE reached a crossroads in Asia, and a sweeping reevaluation of our policies there is no less than essential. Significantly that part of Asia to which we have paid the least attention may hold the key, not only to our own future, but to that of the democratic world. In the vast crescent-shaped area stretching from the Mediterranean, across the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, to Southeast Asia and the South China Sea, live one-third of the world's people. Today they are uneasy and uncommitted, suspicious of the Western democracies, but as yet reluctant to cast in their
Source URL: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1954-10-01/fresh-look-free-asia