The American Search for Stability in Southeast Asia, 1940-1950

FAIN: FA-12070-78

Gary R. Hess
Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, OH 43403-4401)

TO write a book on US policy in Southeast Asia during the 1940s. Principal points include: (1) the origins of US interest in SE Asia as consequence of the Japanese-American crisis of 1940-41: (2) State Department planning during WW II for transfer of political control from colonial powers to pro-Western, non-collaborationist elites; (3) US policy in the Philippines as indicative of US model for decolonization: (4) US response to the revolutions in Indonesia and Indochina: (5) the impact of the Chinese Civil War. By 1950 the US regarded SE Asia as a vital front in the struggle against Communism and it had established objectives that the Korean War served to reinforce, thus setting the basis of American policy for the next quarter century.