Editing Containment (section)

==Alternative strategies==
There were three alternative policies to containment under discussion in the late 1940s. The first was a return to [[isolationism]], minimizing American involvement with the rest of the world, a policy that was supported by conservative Republicans, especially from the [[Midwestern United States|Midwest]], including former President [[Herbert Hoover]] and Senator [[Robert A. Taft]]. However, many other Republicans, led by Senator [[Arthur H. Vandenberg]], said that policy had helped cause World War II and so was too dangerous to revive.<ref>{{cite book|author=David McCullough|title=Truman|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8fp1A2s6aQwC&pg=PA631|year=2003|publisher=Simon & Schuster|page=631|author-link=David McCullough|isbn=9780743260299}}</ref>

The second policy was a continuation of the [[détente]] policies that aimed at friendly relationships with the Soviet Union, especially trade. Roosevelt had been the champion of détente, but he was dead, and most of his inner circle had left the government by 1946. The chief proponent of détente was Henry Wallace, a former vice president and the [[United States Secretary of Commerce|Secretary of Commerce]] under Truman. Wallace's position was supported by far-left elements of the [[Congress of Industrial Organizations|CIO]], but they were purged in 1947 and 1948. Wallace ran against Truman on the [[Progressive Party (United States, 1948)|Progressive Party]] ticket in 1948, but his campaign was increasingly dominated by Communists, which helped to discredit détente.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Jerel A. Rosati|author2=James M. Scott|title=The Politics of United States Foreign Policy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SQjN0TpG7tAC&pg=PA342|year=2011|publisher=Cengage Learning|page=342|isbn=9780495797241}}</ref>

The third policy was [[rollback]], an aggressive effort to undercut or destroy the Soviet Union itself. Military rollback against the Soviet Union was proposed by [[James Burnham]]<ref>Daniel Kelly, ''James Burnham and the Struggle for the World: A Life'' (2002) p. 155</ref> and other conservative strategists in the late 1940s. After 1954, Burnham and like-minded strategists became editors and regular contributors to [[William F. Buckley Jr.]]'s ''[[National Review]]'' magazine.

Truman himself adopted a rollback strategy in the [[Korean War]] after the success of the [[Inchon]] landings in September 1950, only to reverse himself after the Chinese [[counterattack]] two months later and revert to containment. General [[Douglas MacArthur]] called on Congress to continue the rollback policy, but Truman [[Relief of Douglas MacArthur|fired him for insubordination]].<ref>James I. Matray, "Truman's Plan for Victory: National Self-Determination and the Thirty-Eighth Parallel Decision in Korea." ''Journal of American History'' (1979): 314–333. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1900879 in JSTOR]</ref>

Under President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], a rollback strategy was considered against communism in Eastern Europe from 1953 to 1956. Eisenhower agreed to a propaganda campaign to roll back the influence of communism psychologically, but he refused to intervene in the 1956 [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|Hungarian Revolution]],<ref>[http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_cold_war_studies/v001/1.3borhi.html László Borhi, "Rollback, Liberation, Containment, or Inaction? U.S. Policy and Eastern Europe in the 1950s", ''Journal of Cold War Studies'', 1#3 (1999), pp 67–110 online]</ref> mainly for fear that it would cause [[World War III]]. Since late 1949, when the Soviets had successfully tested an atomic bomb, they had been known to possess [[nuclear weapons]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Robert R. Bowie and Richard H. Immerman. eds.|title=Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VPHLOOMDP0UC&pg=PA158|year=1998|publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=158–77|isbn=9780195140484}}</ref>