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Master of Arts / Department of History / Derek S. Hoff / In the years immediately after World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower insisted that he did not want to run for office. However, the general, persuaded by the efforts of Citizens for Eisenhower groups, reversed his decision before the 1952 election. The new politician did not take an easy path to the White House, however, as Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, the leading conservative Republican, fought to represent the GOP. Eisenhower aligned with the moderate faction, the party’s traditional source of power, and joined the Republicans during the early stages of a civil war in the party. From the time Eisenhower received the presidential nomination in 1952 until his death in 1969, he committed himself to leading the GOP and establishing moderate, not conservative, Republicanism as the party’s ideology. However, this aspect of Eisenhower’s political career has largely been ignored by historians. The analyses of Eisenhower that focus on his presidency, rather than his military career, concentrate on policy decisions, omitting the president’s role as party leader during a transformative era. This oversight not only skews Eisenhower’s legacy but also renders analyses of the conservative revolution in American politics incomplete. Before conservative Senator Barry Goldwater secured the Republican nomination in 1964, a very important moment that augured —but did not guarantee — the future triumph of the conservative wing, Eisenhower worked to stop his campaign. Had Eisenhower succeeded, the GOP and American politics could have followed a much different trajectory in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Utilizing documents from throughout Eisenhower’s political career, this study argues that although Eisenhower failed to halt conservatism, he influenced the course of the GOP. During the 1950s and 1960s, Eisenhower helped revitalize the party, improved the party’s organization, and contributed to conservatism’s delayed ascendancy. Furthermore, Eisenhower merits recognition as a party leader who worked tirelessly on behalf of moderate Republicanism, not just as a man with impressive coattails for Republicans to cling to during elections.

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This thesis reviews the significance of the 1969 Japan-US Summit between Prime Minister Satii Eisaku and President Richard Nixon in light of official documents that have been disclosed in Japan since 2010 and in the United States since the 1990s. Based on newly available sources, this thesis shows that the 1969 Summit should be considered a Japanese-led initiative with two aims: firstly, to announce a deadline for Okinawa's return with all nuclear weapons removed; and secondly, to reform the Japan-US security treaty system without repeating the kind of outright revision concluded in 1960. The Japanese plan to reform the security treaty system involved simplifying the prior consultation formula by making a public commitment to the security of South Korea of sufficient strength that the United States would agree to the dissolution of the 1960 secret 'Korea Minute'. The Japanese Government achieved its first aim but only partially succeeded in its second. Whilst the return of Okinawa was announced, the status of US bases in Okinawa and mainland Japan continued to be governed by an elaborate web of agreements, public and secret, which damaged public confidence and hampered an improvement in relations between Japan and its neighbouring countries. This thesis shows that commonly held academic opinions about the 1969 Summit are incorrect. Firstly, there was no quid pro quo in which Japan linked its security to South Korea in exchange for Okinawa: both these outcomes were in fact Japanese objectives at the beginning of the summit preparations. Secondly, the success of the summit did not depend on 'backchannel' negotiations between Wakaizumi Kei and Henry Kissinger: it is likely that an announcement on Okinawa's reversion would have been achieved in 1969 even if preparations for the summit had been left to the Japanese Foreign Ministry and the US State Department. Word Limit: Approx. 98,000 words, excluding Bibliography