Helen Bury. Eisenhower and the Cold War Arms Race

Helen Bury has written an interesting book about President Dwight D. Eisenhower's military strategy during his eight years in office. Before Ike assumed the presidency, defense spending had increased as a result of the Korean War and the dictates of NSC-68, his predecessor's guiding document for countering the USSR. Eisenhower feared the economic harm of a large federal budget, and he consequently sought to restrain federal appropriations, including funds allocated to the military. Once in the White House, he took a “New Look” at U.S. foreign and defense policy. Eisenhower made nuclear armaments more central to U.S. military plans. By ensuring that the United States would promptly respond with atomic weapons to almost any type of Soviet aggression (in a spasmodic act of “massive retaliation”), the need and attendant expense of a large standing army and navy was seemingly obviated. Amidst this reorientation of policy, Ike gave a speech at a 1955 summit of the big powers in which he proposed that the Soviet Union and United States each permit the other to conduct aerial reconnaissance flights over important military facilities and factories. These missions, combined with the sharing of other details about warfighting capabilities, offered the prospect of tempering Cold War tensions. Although “Open Skies” (as the plan was dubbed) was rejected by the Soviets, Bury supports the view that it could have lessened mutual suspicions of the opposing blocs and undercut calls for a continuing military buildup at a crucial period in the superpower contest.

Arms race · Cold war · CONTEST · Economic history · Nuclear weapon · Political science · Politics · Presidency · Summit · Superpower · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies