HOPE AND DESTINY

A historian examines U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East in the decade after World War II.

Chenault, a former military officer and Fulbright Scholar with a doctorate in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is uniquely qualified to reassess the mid-20th-century history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. While focusing attention on Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, his book also contends that a third figure—Arkansas Sen. J. William Fulbright—was also responsible for shaping U.S. policy in the region. Though the story of Cold War involvement in the Middle East is well-trod terrain, this book brings important revisions to the standard historical narrative. For instance, many scholars agree that the Truman Doctrine was singularly concentrated on Greece and Turkey, but Chenault suggests a third locale—Palestine—is also central to understanding the policy. Moreover, with advanced knowledge of Arabic and Hebrew, Chenault uncovered translation errors made by State Department officials, whose translations of letters to U.S. officials by Arab leaders left out important linguistic nuances that gave U.S. policymakers inaccurate information. His expertise in Middle Eastern languages also affords Chenault the ability to emphasize Arab perspectives often lacking in studies of U.S. policy. His research thus not only consults the archival materials of Truman, Eisenhower, and Fulbright, but also Egyptian and Palestinian daily newspapers al-Ahraam and al-Quds. Despite its fresh insights, cynics of U.S. foreign policy, such as those who view American Cold War strategies through a neocolonial lens, may take issue with the hagiographic tone; Truman, Eisenhower, and Fulbright are praised as men of “true greatness” with “abounding courage.” Even if one disagrees with its pro-American conclusions, the book is remarkably readable for its coverage of the intricacies of Middle Eastern and Cold War diplomacy. A wealth of photographs, charts, and reprints of memos, speeches, and other primary source documents add to the reading experience.

An important, if adulatory, reassessment of America’s relationship with the Middle East during the 1940s and ’50s.