Although the foreign policy decisions made by Kennedy and Johnson determined the final form of postwar diplomacy and laid the foundation for the tumultuous worldwide political changes of the last five years, until now no book has examined American diplomacy during 1960s as a whole.

During his presidency, Kennedy concentrated on foreign policy. The president and his staff feared that communism had taken the offensive internationally and that the U.S. was in danger of losing the confrontation, particularly in the developing world. While Johnson attempted to focus on domestic issues, foreign...

Diane Kunz describes here how the United States employed economic diplomacy to affect relations among states during the Suez Crisis of 1956-57. Using political and financial archival material from the United States and Great Britain, and drawing from personal interviews with many of the key players, Kunz focuses on how economic diplomacy determined the course of events during the crisis from start to finish. In doing so, she provides both an excellent case study of the role of economic sanctions in international relations and a solid treatment of the American use of such sanctions against a...