It was once said that the sun never set on the British Empire. World War II, however, weakened the colonial powers—particularly Britain and France. The colonies themselves, aware of this growing weakness, began advocating independence, and liberation movements within these developing nations began to evolve. U.S. foreign policy makers encouraged U.S. intervention in these movements to prevent Communist revolutions, thereby hoping to prevent the spread of Soviet influence. Whether this intervention was justified or effective was hotly debated throughout the Cold War and after.

In February 1956 Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered a secret speech at the twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in which he promised that the Soviet Union would support “wars of national liberation.” The Soviet Union had good reasons to assist developing nations struggling to be free of their colonial powers...