News
- Over a dozen photo albums have been uploaded to the gallery section of this site, focusing on my
travels over the past three years.
- A book I edited, entitled The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: Hungarian
and Canadian Perspectives and published by the University of
Ottawa press is available for order through the Barnes
& Noble website.
’Not an Unmixed Evil’—the Eisenhower Administration and the 1956
Hungarian Revolution.
Pierre Savard Graduate Student Colloquium / Le Colloque Pierre-Savard
des Étudiants Diplômés, Department of History -
University of Ottawa
April 2006
By 1956, the anti-Communist fervour of the high Cold War years
had been, in part, replaced by a less overtly militant opposition to
the Soviet Union. The 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Moscow’s brutal
military response to the uprising tested the strength of Dwight D.
Eisenhower’s seemingly more conciliatory approach to Nikita
Khrushchev’s regime. Nevertheless, the uprising also served as a stark
reminder of the reality of the Cold War to anyone whose anti-Communism
had begun to waver in light of waning tensions between the two powers.
The policy of détente coupled by fears of widespread conflict
precluded any US military intervention in Hungary during the revolution
and served as the administration’s reasoning for not attempting to
assist Hungarian revolutionaries in their attempt to break free from
the Warsaw Pact. Yet in early 1956, the US government knew full
well that unrest in Hungary was a distinct possibility and—despite
Eisenhower’s more conciliatory rhetoric—organizations affiliated with
Washington, such as Radio Free Europe, followed a policy of
anti-Communist agitation and created the impression in Hungary that
America’s commitment to emancipating the “captive nations” included
military intervention.
In the period leading up to the Hungarian revolution and during the
uprising itself, anti-Soviet harangues broadcasted into Eastern Europe
contrasted sharply with US foreign policy and the outward expressions
of rapprochement. The Hungarian uprising of October 1956 proved to be
Eastern Europe’s most bloody revolution, fuelled in part by the false
hopes associated with America’s relentless verbal assault on Communism.
Yet for Washington, the battles in Budapest were not meant to serve as
a justification for US intervention, but rather as a graphic example of
Soviet brutality and as a shocking reminder to domestic and western
audiences of the repressive ways of Communist rule.
Christopher Adam