Historians and specialists of international politics often write about how the United States helped to build an international order based on liberal politics and economics after World War 2. But is this what American leaders actually set out to do? This project uses the methodology of intellectual history to show that the commitment of postwar American leaders to liberalism was always mixed with other concerns, like expanding American power or protecting racial inequality at home. Recognizing this makes the simple story of an American-created liberal international order insufficient for understanding either their time or ours.