America’s fear during the Cold War can be summarized as the fear of Mutually Assured Destruction or M.A.D. M.A.D. because even if America was the first to develop the atomic bomb across the Atlantic Britain, France and U.S.S.R. would soon develop their own nuclear weapons. The last was terrifying since the U.S.S.R. was a communist state and the only reason the U.S. allied with them in World War 2 was to fight a common enemy. For decades after both sides rattled sabers around the world and threatened to annihilate each other with their vast arsenal of nuclear weapons. Despite great strides in progress the average American feared that one-day Russian Nukes would come raining from the skies and end civilization.
Perhaps the most effective symbol of Eisenhower’s successful efforts to allay these fears was the so-called Eisenhower doctrine which provides; “Commitment of US forces to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of such nations, requesting such aid against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by international communism” (US State Department). Eisenhower’s administration did all it could, including use of US troops, to stem the tide of communism.
In March 1954 Eisenhower mentions that there was a great amount of hysteria in America about the men in the Kremlin and how people back home were overzealous in their witch hunt for suspected communist supporters (Eisenhower, 1954). Americans were almost naturally afraid of Communism because they did not understand it other than what they saw in worker’s strikes at home and news of Communist atrocities in countries where they took power. To make matters worse, the ”Other” World power at the other side of the globe the U.S.S.R. was actively promoting its communist ideals to the point of supporting communist revolutionaries with arms and money. By the 1950s Russia also had nuclear weapons and they launched Sputnik the first man-made satellite. These advances suggested that far-away Russia could indeed strike at American soil with its dreaded nukes. Coupled with numerous crisis situations where American ideology and Russian ideology clashed, such as during the construction of the Berlin wall and the Korean War, it was no wonder that the Russian bear could be used to threaten children and grown men to go to be so to speak. The hysteria is best represented by the numerous Fall-out shelters built during the cold war. Americans honestly feared that one-day Russian nukes would come falling down from the skies.
In addition, Eisenhower believed that nuclear weapons, both fission and fusion, were acceptable and desirable assets to help protect U.S. national security against the threat of international communism (Jones B. 2007). He championed the beneficent role played by nuclear weapons, including both civilian and military uses, and he lauded the simultaneous and multi-pronged use of the atom for peace and for war. Despite disagreements with General Mac Arthur over his threats to use nuclear weapons during the Korean War Eisenhower understood that at some point in a conflict Nuclear weapons were indeed a viable weapon to force an enemy to surrender or baring that to utterly destroy him.
However, some people suggested that Eisenhower suffered from “nuclear schizophrenia.” (Carol. 209) For example, his administration oversaw over a hundred nuclear weapons tests yet overseas the construction of only a handful of civilian plants. He also worried about nuclear proliferation yet successfully negotiated over three dozen bi bilateral treaties, agreeing to ship fissile material and nuclear reactor technology abroad if nations renounced future pursuit. But this was the same material that gave them the means to develop nuclear weapons anyway if they chose to do so. He feared for the fate of Americans in the event of nuclear exchange, but dismissed a 1957 recommendation to spend five billion dollars a year for five years to build fallout shelters that might save tens of millions of Americans in the event of nuclear war.
John Foster Dulles issued a statement in June 1954 saying that the spread of Communism had to be stemmed and it was in the best interest of all American states to work together to prevent their neighbors from falling to Communist rebels (Dulles, 1954). This was a natural reaction to the Guatemala crisis where the Communist regime later took over. Just a few scant years later Cuba would also fall to Fidel Castro a known Communist. This made things worse because now Russian Nuclear weapons were just a few hundred miles off the coast of Florida.
It is no wonder that Kennedy’s inaugural address in January of 1961 exhorts America to be strong, to be able and willing to fight for the liberty they hold so dear (Kennedy, 1961). At the same time he supports the build-up of nuclear arms so that one day the fear of such (nuclear) force will stem the tide of conventional war forever. The Cuban missile crisis was perhaps the darkest point in recent history because it was preceded by the Bay of Pigs incident and all signs pointed to a U.S. invasion of Cuba to remove the threat of the Russian Nukes stationed there.
In January of 1958, the Washington Post ran an editorial cartoon that showed the Missile program being stuffed into a garage to the exclusion of other programs which would be just as important and desirable for the country (Washington Post, 1958). So much money was being spent on the nuclear missile program even if other programs starved on the pittance budget they received. But this was a natural reaction to the fear felt by the people at the time. After all, feeding programs, and welfare programs were meaningless if Russia had nuclear weapons with outputs measured in the megaton. The desire to be safe under a blanket of powerful nuclear weapons made such policy valid at the time.
Ultimately the Eisenhower administration and the presidents that followed failed to allay the fears of M.A.D. The greatest symbolism of this was the fact that many houses built during this time had fallout shelters and many families had made provisions, albeit misguided provisions, on how to survive a nuclear winter. Movies like, the planet of the Apes, the original Heston career, played on the average American’s perception of what would happen if the Nuclear winter actually fell on the planet. It would not be until the fall of the U.S.S.R. that anyone could breathe free from the fear of the end of the world. Even today people are still afraid that perhaps there is some mad man in the Kremlin who will trigger the end of the world by launching the reduced but still potent arsenal of Russia. It is no wonder that the previous administration considered its top priority to be the prevention of additional nuclear proliferation.
Works Cited
- “Memorandum to Lewis Strauss from Robert Cutler,” 1953, Papers
- of Lewis S. Strauss, Atomic Energy Commission Series, Box 8, Atoms for Peace, 1949-1954, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa, hereinafter Hoover Library,
- Calder, Bruce. (2009) U.S. Presidents and Latin American Interventions: Pursuing Regime Change in the Cold War. The Americas. ( Vol. 66, Iss. 1; p. 148). Berkeley.
- Ford, Christopher. (2008) A New Paradigm: Shattering Obsolete Thinking on Arms Control and Nonproliferation.Arms Control Today. (Vol. 38, Iss. 9; p. 12). Washington.
- Jones, Brian Madison. (2008). Abolishing the Taboo: President Eisenhower and the Permissible Use of Nuclear Weapons form National.
- Joseph Carroll, House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007), 209.
- Keys, Barbara. (2008) Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad.Canadian Journal of History.(43, 1; pg. 215).
- Lee, Sonny. (2009) The Eisenhower Administration, The Third World and The Globalization of the Cold War.Journal of Third World Studies.
- Eisenhower, Dwight, Press Conference 1954