Senator Joseph McCarthy Calls for Communist-Controlled Nations to Be Discussed at Eisenhower’s Geneva Summit (June)

Date: June 20, 1955

Created By: Joseph McCarthy

Original or Replica: Original

Era: McCarthyism and the Red Scare, The Presidency

Collection: Eisenhower Presidential Library

Citations: White House Office of the Staff Secretary, L. Arthur Minnich Series, Box 1, Miscellaneous Mc; NAID #16703049

This June 20, 1955 Senate resolution, introduced by Senator Joseph McCarthy, addresses the upcoming Geneva Summit between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the leaders of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France. The resolution argues that the United States faced a continuing threat from international Communism and had an obligation to support peoples living under Communist rule. It identifies numerous countries and regions in Eastern Europe and Asia—including Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic states, China, and North Korea—as areas whose political status remained an important concern for American foreign policy.

McCarthy’s resolution responds specifically to Soviet statements indicating that the status of Communist-controlled nations would not be discussed at the July 1955 Geneva meeting. It warns that excluding the subject could imply American acceptance of permanent Communist domination over those countries. The resolution therefore calls on Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to obtain agreement from the Soviet Union, Britain, and France that the present and future status of Communist-controlled nations in Eastern Europe and Asia would be placed on the summit agenda. Significantly, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported the resolution adversely, meaning it recommended against its adoption. The document illustrates McCarthy’s continued emphasis on aggressive anti-Communism and debates over how the Eisenhower administration should approach negotiations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.