Adlai Stevenson Ends the Cold War
* General Dwight Eisenhower, former commander of all Allied forces in Europe in World War II, was a very popular president from 1952-60, a conservative (though not by today's standards) but not fanatic, anti Communist but also somewhat against McCarthyism. He was also a conservative in the sense of being cautious, and a defender of things as they were. Such a man could at best promote stability, and would never try for anything as revolutionary as ending the Cold War that threatened to end all life on Earth.
* For Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic candidate in 1952 and 1956, to become president, one has to imagine Eisenhower not running, that instead a lesser candidate such as Robert Taft or Thomas Dewey, or even Joe McCarthy at his most self-destructive, was the Republican candidate. Taft the isolationist, Dewey the dull but earnest reformer, or McCarthy at his most drunken and hysterical would all likely lose to Stevenson.
* Unlike with Wallace, there is far less of a concern with Stalin betraying any agreement. Stalin would be in the final stages of dying by the time Stevenson became president. In fact Stalin had been in poor health for almost a decade. In 1945 he had a major heart attack and suffered from hardening of the arteries and his own heavy smoking for the rest of his life.
* Stalin's death means any number of Soviet leaders who are less hardline, more willing to avoid conflict, and by Communist standards, less repressive. This does not mean full democracy by any means, or anything but the most cautious peace. But it does mean the death toll from repression falls from tens of millions to thousands and Soviet leaders looking to avoid further Cold War that both Truman and Stalin trapped their nations into.
* Stevenson began as a moderate, an anti Communist but a thoughtful one, an enormously smart intellectual who learned and moved his positions to the left over time. As the Cold War worsened, Stevenson was among the first to call for an end to nuclear testing. As Governor of Illinois, he stood up to anti Communist hysteria, vetoing a bill requiring loyalty oaths. He even defended Alger Hiss, a diplomat smeared as a Soviet spy by Nixon, an enormously brave act in the middle of McCarthyism.
* The first problem Stevenson would face is the Korean War, two years old and bogged down in a stalemate. There are no good choices here. North Korea was and is one of the most brutal dictatorships. But so was the South Korean government under its dictator Syngman Rhee. Eisenhower finally resorted to hinting he was going to use the A-bomb against North Korea. Rhee wanted to continue fighting and demanded the US conquer North Korea for him.
Ike bluntly told Rhee the war was now ended. (See Section Eleven.) Stevenson is very unlikely to bluff about using the A-bomb. But continuing support for Rhee is also unlikely, and the war may end much like World War I had the US never intervened, all sides simply exhausted.
* Eisenhower overthrew governments in both Guatemala and Iran on vague suspicions they might in some way be Communist sympathizers. In both countries the coups turned out disastrously in the long run, eventually leading to genocide in Guatemala in the 1980s and an Islamic theocracy in Iran in the 1970s until today. With Stevenson, both outcomes may be avoided. Ike also supported the French in their attempt to hold onto their colony in Vietnam, and even sent the first US troops there.
* The biggest question of all, of course, is how the Cold War is different. For several years after Stalin's death, there was a power struggle among Soviet leaders Beria, Khrushchev, Malenkov, and Molotov. Khrushchev eventually won in 1956, and both he and Beria freed huge numbers of political prisoners. One of the most important things Khrushchev did was the so called Secret Speech. Read to Soviet congresses and then to Eastern European leaders, the speech listed all of Stalin's crimes and denounced them. The speech was part of the reason Hungary rose up against Soviet control in 1956. Khrushchev also allowed some freedom of speech in the arts, allowed many western tourists for the first time, cut the number of Soviet troops by a third, gave up plans for a large navy, and even abolished special tribunals, bringing an end to almost all trials for political prisoners.
* But to dogmatic anti-Communists, this was all ignored or seen as a trick, a conspiracy to fool the west to let their guard down. One of the strongest anti-Communists was then Vice President Richard Nixon, who even got into practically a shouting match with Khrushchev in the so called Kitchen Debate. When Eisenhower and Khrushchev were due to meet for a summit, Ike had U-2 spy planes fly over the USSR. One was shot down, and the scandal ended any hope of an agreement at the summit.
* But with Stevenson, this is not a president or administration believing that reforms are a trick. Instead there are two reform minded and peace minded leaders in both the US and USSR. There would have been an earlier test ban treaty. Without the U-2 scandal, there likely will be an early agreement to allow monitoring of each others nuclear arsenals, and possibly an agreement on Berlin. What this all potentially adds up to is an end of the Cold War, and reforms in the Soviet Union eventually much like what happened with Gorbachev in the late 1980’s, but 30 years earlier.
* The Cuban missile crisis? Likely it never happens. The US-Vietnam War? Likely it never happens either. Vietnam is united under Ho Chi Minh, and without over two decades of fighting that strengthened Vietnam's Communists, the government is more nationalist than Communist. Both the hippie counterculture of the 1960’s and the conservative backlash of the 70’s and 80’s are far less likely, or they take very different forms.
* Would Stevenson be re elected? That is quite likely, unless the Korean War somehow turned even worse and dragged on close to the elections in 1956. The mid 1950’s were somewhat prosperous, which made for a happy nation and re election of the party in power. Stevenson's reforms seeking to end the Cold War, once they are seen to work, likely make him more popular, even in spite of anti-Communists' anger and suspicion. We likely remember Stevenson, accurately, as one of two men who ended the Cold War, much the way many today inaccurately “remember” Reagan ending the Cold War.