A conference on the Eisenhower administration's foreign policy toward the Third World will be held on 21-23 March 2003 at the Joan Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice on the campus of the University of San Diego.

The primary focus of the conference will be the Eisenhower administration’s role in the increasingly globalized Cold War. American officials struggled to respond to the dual threats of communism and nationalism as decolonization swept through the Third World during the 1950s and changed the nature of the Cold War and U.S. foreign relations with those nations. As the Cold War increasingly became a zero-sum game, the Third World became the primary battleground in the ideological, economic, and political struggle between Washington and Moscow. Indeed, as these essays will demonstrate, the Eisenhower administration placed an extremely high priority on victory in the Third World and seemed willing to go to virtually any length to ensure that countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas remained aligned with the forces of democracy and capitalism. Diplomatic historians have increasingly called for more study of the Third World in relation to the Cold War; this conference will contribute to a greater understanding of the multifaceted and complex nature of the conflict, and the important (and often pivotal) role played by actors outside of Washington and Moscow during the 1950s.

Conference participants will include Irwin Gellman, Andrew Johns, John Prados, Kenneth Osgood, Lisa Cobbs Hoffman, Ali Gheissari, James Matray, Kathryn Statler, Robert McMahon, Yi Sun, James Siekmeier, James Meriwether, Jason Parker, Daniel Williamson, Nathan Citino, Peter Hahn, David Anderon, and Chester Pach.

Individuals interested in attending the conference should contact either Kathryn Statler or Andrew Johns for more information.