COLDWAR: 27/37 1996 Mar 14

Typescript transcript of interview with US Gen Andrew Jackson Goodpaster, Assistant to US Gen of the Army Dwight David Eisenhower, 1950-1952, Defense Liaison Officer and Staff Secretary to US President Eisenhower, 1954-1961, commanded US 8 Infantry Div, 1961-1962, Deputy Commander, US Forces in Vietnam, 1968-1969, and Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR), 1969-1974, relating to US national security policy at the beginning of US President Eisenhower's administration, 1953; the Korean War, 1950-1953; the importance of ending US involvement in the Korean War, 1953; the possibility of conflict between Italy and Yugoslavia over the port of Trieste, 1945-1954; confrontation between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan over the disputed islands of Quemoy-Matsu, [1953]; the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1949, and membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), 1955; US nuclear capability, 1953; the death of Soviet President Josef Vissarionovich Stalin, 5 Mar 1953; the 'solarium symposium', discussions within the Eisenhower administration on US relations with the USSR and the East European satellite countries, [1953]; Eisenhower's policy of containment towards the USSR, 1953-1961; Eisenhower's opinion of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) investigation against Dr Julius Robert Oppenheimer, 1953-1954; the importance of the RAND Corporation in US defence policy, [1946-1950]; John von Neumann's 'game theory', strategic interaction in competitive and cooperative environments applied to economic theory, [1946-1947]; the announcement of the US Atoms for Peace programme to share nuclear knowledge with other countries, 1953; the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 1957; the first Atoms for Peace Conference, Geneva, Switzerland, 1955; US President Eisenhower's Open Skies proposal, to allow US and Soviet aircraft to overfly each other's countries to observe military installations, and for an exchange of military programmes to occur, [1953]; the 'bomber gap', the US belief that the USSR had more strategic bombers in operational service than the USAF, [1955-1957]; the launch of the Soviet Sputnik I and Sputnik II Earth orbiting satellites via SS-6 'Sapwood' Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM), Oct and Nov 1957; the failed attempt by the USA to launch the Vanguard rocket, Dec 1957; the successful launch of Explorer I, the first US satellite, by JUPITER-C Missile RS-29, a modified Redstone rocket, Jan 1958; the Gaither Report, a Ford Foundation Commission Study, that concluded that the USSR was ahead of the USA in the production of nuclear missiles, Oct 1957; the US defense budget, 1953-1961; the US National Defense Education Act, to encourage the youth of the USA to excel in science and mathematics, 1958; the US use of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) piloted Lockheed U2 high altitude photographic reconnaissance aircraft in missions over the USSR to search for Soviet ICBM silos, 1956-1960; the shooting down, near Sverdlovsk, USSR, of a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U2 high altitude photographic reconnaissance aircraft, and the capture of the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, May 1960; the summit meeting between Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, and US President Eisenhower, Paris, France, May 1960; the US/Soviet arms race and the increase in the production and deployment of nuclear weapons, [1962-1969]; the official visit to the USA by Khrushchev, 1959; the ultimatum, by Khrushchev, to the western powers to withdraw from West Berlin, Germany, Nov 1958; the Cuban Missile Crisis, Oct 1962; the recommendation from the US Technological Capabilities Panel (TCP) that ICBMs would replace strategic bombers as the primary nuclear weapon delivery system, [1955]. 38pp