8) Eisenhowe Dulles and Massive Retaliation

Truman leaves Eisenhower a problem.

The Korean War was stuck in a stalemate, and American soldiers kept dying. Meanwhile, building and maintaining a huge military under NSC-68 was expensive.

Eisenhower becomes pres

• 1953

• He wanted to contain communism without spending so much money on a massive conventional military.

John Foster Dulles

• Concept of “Massive Retaliation"

• If the Soviet Union attacked the U.S. or its allies, the U.S. would respond with overwhelming nuclear force

NSC-162/2 puts this strategy into practice

• 1953

• Rely more on nuclear weapons and strategic bombing.

• Maintain a smaller conventional military.

• Reduce defense spending to protect the economy.

• Smaller federal expenditures = healthier U.S. economy= healthier democracy 

Uprising in East Berlin

• 1953

• East Germany revolted against Soviet control

• NSC-162/2 won’t work (only on major attacks)

• What is the Soviet union causes smaller crises instead of launching a full-scale invasion

• Negotiation ceasefire in Korea

1953

• China agrees to a ceasefire in Korea!

• French army trapped in Dienbienphu

1954

• Eisenhower doesn’t step in

• Quemoy and Matsu Crisis (Islands off coast of China)

1955

• China attempting an attack on Taiwan, Will Eisenhower defend Quemoy & Matsu with nuclear weapons?

Sputnik shocks America

(1957).

• The Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik. Americans worried that Soviet rocket technology could also deliver nuclear weapons.

Esenhower fair well

• Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex

• “In the councils of govt, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence weather osughy or unsought, th the military - indisutal complec. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplace power exisys and will persist” _Eisenhower