U.S. Foreign Policy Toward North Africa During the Cold War: From Eisenhower to Kennedy (1953–1963)

Abstract

World War II represented a major turning point in the development of U.S. relations with North Africa. The Allied landing in Algeria in 1942 and the Enfa conference on January 22, 1943, which brought together President Roosevelt and the sultan of Morocco, Mohamed V, constituted the first substantial American direct contact with North African colonial realities. How, then, did American policymakers and diplomats perceive North African political realities, especially during the wars of independence (1954–1963) and throughout the Cold War? How did the Eisenhower doctrine and U.S. perceptions respond to North African nationalist aspirations during the subsequent fifty years? What was the significance of U.S. foreign policy regarding the complex problem of the Algerian War of Independence, bearing in mind the Kennedy administration’s sympathy and active political support for the revolutionaries? This article attempts to shed some light on this critical period of the Cold War and to offer a multifaceted examination of the historical course of development of U.S.-North African relations from the non-American perspective.