11. The United States did not serve as the global policeman
During the 1950s, the United States under both the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations provided financial and materiel support to the French efforts to regain their colonies in Southeast Asia. The support was both covert and extensive. Americans did not learn of its extent until the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Under Eisenhower, military advisors supported the South Vietnamese and helped break down the Geneva Accords which had ended the French involvement in Vietnam and divided the country into North and South Vietnam. Nor was Southeast Asia the only region in which the United States acted to control the internal affairs of another nation during the 1950s. Instead, it was but one of many. In 1953 the Central Intelligence Agency, under Allen Dulles, directed a coup to overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran.
Led by Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, the coup was planned and executed by CIA operatives. It included the bribing of Iranian officials and the dissemination of propaganda decrying Prime Minister Mossadegh and supportive of Reza Pahlevi, who was restored as the Shah of Iran. The CIA designated the coup Operation Ajax. In 1954 the CIA executed a coup in Guatemala, deposing the elected president and installing a right-wing dictator, Jacobo Arbenz. Regime change operations conducted by the American CIA took place in the 1950s in Iran, Guatemala, Syria, Egypt, Burma, Indonesia, and South Vietnam. All were covert in the sense they were kept from the American people, yet the release of classified materials in the 21st century indicates they were known at the time at the highest levels of the American government.
