Common sense national defense: Helium, Latin America, and U.S. diplomacy with Nazi Germany, 1933 – 1938
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Abstract
This project examines the role of helium in the deterioration of foreign relations between the United States of America and Nazi Germany in the 1930’s. Helium as a commodity overlapped several of the major foreign policy issues of the U.S. during the decade such as: the Good Neighbor Policy with Latin America, the Neutrality Acts, and German defaults on U.S. loans. The research for this project is comprised of personal letters, diaries, government correspondence, congressional hearings, speeches, and newspapers to offer a unique perspective of the overlapping concerns and perceptions the U.S. Government had on the Nazi threat, helium, and Latin America. This project progresses chronologically from 1933 through 1939. The results revealed that helium played a more important role in U.S. foreign relations with Germany in the 1930s than previously recognized. The denial of U.S. helium acted as a method of pressure on the German economy and its global image by ending commercial dirigible travel and hindering German cultural diplomacy efforts. The denial was justified by concerns about German militaristic expansion and the necessity to protect U.S. superiority in Latin America. Through the research and results of this project, the U.S. acted against Nazi Germany in the 1930s, not out of a sense of morality, but because of economic policy and the necessity to protect U.S. hemispheric superiority in the Western Hemisphere.