American Protestants and US Foreign Policy Toward the Soviet Union
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American Protestants and U.S. Foreign Policy Toward the Soviet Union During the Eisenhower Administration: Billy Graham, Reinhold Niebuhr, and G. Bromley Oxnam by AARON K. DAVIS B.A., Northern Illinois University, 2008 M.A., Western Illinois University, 2010 AN ABSTRACT OF A DISSERTATION submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History College of Arts and Sciences KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 2017 Abstract This dissertation considers American Protestant perceptions of U.S. foreign policy directed toward Soviet Union during the Dwight D. Eisenhower presidency (1953-1961). The question of what a culture dominated by Protestant denominations thought of its global adversary has not yet been sufficiently explored by scholars of either American religious history or diplomatic history. Most scholars who deal with the intersection of religion and foreign policy during the Eisenhower Administration tend to accentuate the close relationship that existed between government policy and general religious attitudes. That is to say, a general, widespread Protestant support of foreign policy objectives stands as the prevailing interpretation. Most historians conclude that America’s Protestant church leaders—preachers, pastors, and bishops— either actively supported government foreign policy objectives or sought to insert their own stances into existing policy. More recently, historians have published monographs that further explore Protestant Christianity with regard to foreign policy in the 1950s. By acknowledging the different strands of Protestant Christianity, scholars have raised significant questions that have heretofore gone unanswered. The primary question is the one that this dissertation seeks to answer—how widespread was American Protestant denunciation of communism and, simultaneously, how broad was American Protestant support for foreign policy objectives? Billy Graham, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Garfield Bromley Oxnam represent the three most prominent representatives of Protestant Christianity’s three major strands. These three acknowledged opinion makers that serve as the focus of this dissertation were not uniform in their perspectives of U.S. foreign policy, yet they all denounced communism and—to a degree— supported America’s efforts to combat the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence throughout the course of the Eisenhower Administration (1953-1961). This conclusion helps explain the tremendous perseverance of containment as a strategy by attributing its success, in part, to the large, Protestant body of supporters that continued to sustain and encourage Washington’s policies directed toward the Soviet Union. American Protestants and U.S. Foreign Policy Toward the Soviet Union During the Eisenhower Administration: Billy Graham, Reinhold Niebuhr, and G. Bromley Oxnam by AARON K. DAVIS B.A., Northern Illinois University, 2008 M.A., Western Illinois University, 2010 A DISSERTATION submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History College of Arts and Sciences KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 2017 Approved by: Robert Linder Major Professor Abstract This dissertation considers American Protestant perceptions of U.S. foreign policy directed toward Soviet Union during the Dwight D. Eisenhower presidency (1953-1961). The question of what a culture dominated by Protestant denominations thought of its global adversary has not yet been sufficiently explored by scholars of either American religious history or diplomatic history. Most scholars who deal with the intersection of religion and foreign policy during the Eisenhower Administration tend to accentuate the close relationship that existed between government policy and general religious attitudes. That is to say, a general, widespread Protestant support of foreign policy objectives stands as the prevailing interpretation. Most historians conclude that America’s Protestant church leaders—preachers, pastors, and bishops— either actively supported government foreign policy objectives or sought to insert their own stances into existing policy. More recently, historians have published monographs that further explore Protestant Christianity with regard to foreign policy in the 1950s. By acknowledging the different strands of Protestant Christianity, scholars have raised significant questions that have heretofore gone unanswered. The primary question is the one that this dissertation seeks to answer—how widespread was American Protestant denunciation of communism and, simultaneously, how broad was American Protestant support for foreign policy objectives? Billy Graham, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Garfield Bromley Oxnam represent the three most prominent representatives of Protestant Christianity’s three major strands. These three acknowledged opinion makers that serve as the focus of this dissertation were not uniform in their perspectives of U.S. foreign policy, yet they all denounced communism and—to a degree— supported America’s efforts to combat the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence throughout the course of the Eisenhower Administration (1953-1961). This conclusion helps explain the tremendous perseverance of containment as a strategy by attributing its success, in part, to the large, Protestant body of supporters that continued to sustain and encourage Washington’s policies directed toward the Soviet Union. Table of Contents Acknowledgements..................................................................................................................... viii Chapter 1—Introduction: America, Evangelical Christianity, and Foreign Affairs in the 1950s......................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2—Civil Religion and America’s Protestant Landscape................................................25 Chapter 3—The Formative Upbringing of Giants........................................................................45 Chapter 4—Billy Graham’s Evangelical Christianity in the 1950s..............................................61 Chapter 5—Reinhold Niebuhr, Neo-Orthodoxy, and the Early Cold War...................................82 Chapter 6—G. Bromley Oxnam, Liberal Protestant Christianity, and the National Religion... 122 Chapter 7—Alphabet Soup: The Extension of Persuasion..........................................................158 Chapter 8—Foreign Policy and the Pulpit…...............................................................................184 Chapter 9—Conclusion: The Legacy of Protestants and the Cold War..................................... 203 Appendix A ................................................................................................................................ 210 Appendix B ................................................................................................................................ 215 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 218 vii Acknowledgements The work of a historian is often done in isolation. The finished product, however, is rarely done without a tremendous amount of assistance. This dissertation is no exception. I wish to express profound gratitude to my doctoral advisor, Professor Robert D. Linder, for teaching me how to be a historian. I am also very grateful to Dr. Barclay Key for stoking my interest in the fascinating history of America in the mid-twentieth century. I wish to thank my committee members, Drs. Donald Mrozek, Louise Breen, Michael Krysko, and Laurie Johnson for their encouragement and guidance. I must also acknowledge Dr. David Stone and Dr. Lou Falkner Williams, respectively, for their early participation on my committee and also for their guidance and instruction throughout my doctorate program. I would not have had as positive an experience as I had digging through archives without the guidance of Zaloise Armstrong at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Archives, the friendly staff at the Presbyterian Historical Society, or the efforts of the Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room team. Like many works that examine Billy Graham, I must acknowledge Bob Schuster and his tremendous archivists at the Billy Graham Center Archives in Wheaton, Illinois. The professionalism and sense of urgency that each of the above archival locations demonstrated was all the more impressive considering the busy summer months that I chose to spend in their presence. I thank Debbie Houk, Dr. Shelly Lemons, my co-panelist Timothy Grundmeier, and a warm audience at the Mid-America Conference on History at McKendree University for providing a welcoming atmosphere for me to present an early version of my research. Additionally, I wish to thank Dr. Thomas A. Howard for helpful comments on a paper I presented at the Conference on Faith and History Conference in Wenham, Massachusetts. I am also thankful for the Kansas State University history department’s Brownbag lecture series. This viii annual event represented a collegial, helpful, and welcoming setting for me as I pitched the outline and scope of my dissertation as it existed in an early stage. My cohort of fellow graduate students at Kansas State University helped me grapple with seminar readings, prepare for preliminary examinations, and realize that difficulties in our collective march toward the finish line were not unique. I sincerely appreciate the friendship and