A Survey of the Foreign Policies of Herbert Hoover During his Presidency

This paper is a survey of the foreign policy of Herbert Hoover during his presidency. He is often associated only with domestic issues and the Great Depression, and his foreign policies have been somewhat unfamiliar. The more reading that was done, the more interesting and absorbing became his ideas and attempts to formulate his actions. The topic was chosen partially because of an intense interest in American history. There has been--and still is--a violently pro-Hoover or anti-Hoover sentiment and criticism regarding this former president. Another reason for this selection is that Mr. Hoover is a contemporary. There may be added personal interest because he was born in a little Iowa town near my former home. I have attempted to present a survey of the Hoover foreign policies as he expressed them and attempted to carry them out. There has been considerable amount written by historians and scholars on this subject but in the final analysis, it is based primarily on the Hoover Memoirs and State Papers which have been extensively used and quoted to establish authenticity and to illustrate the particular policy under discussion. Insofar as it is possible, each foreign policy will be discussed individually and in the order in which it presented itself