Cold War Dbq

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With Communism and Capitalism clashing on a world scale, the two superpowers continue to one up the other and cause immense fear. In America, citizens became extremely threatened as the Soviet Union had developed nukes not long after America and they were ahead of America in terms of space development. This called upon the government to find a solution for the millions of frightened Americans. The Eidenhower administration addressed the Cold War threats and fears fairly poorly and it was seen through the excessive military defense spending and various speeches on the threat of the Soviet Union. As the Cold War ramped up, so did the extreme military defense spending in America. Eisenhower's administration believed that in order to fight the …show more content…

This was their idea of how to stop American fears; however, they only grew larger. Not just political cartoons allow us to see this military spending. In a table made by the Statistical Abstract of the United States, Department of Commerce, we can see that from 1949 to 1959, the percent of Americans' budget spent on defense spending increased more than 25%. This was almost entirely due to Eisenhower and his administration's ideas on how to stop these threats. Although America was becoming a country not to mess with, with all of the bombs, Americans were still in immense fear. The more bombs made, the more destruction in both countries involved. American citizens feared a nuclear war and destruction, so this great increase in military spending only encouraged fear. Despite the fact that most military spending was on missiles and only caused more fear, some went into projects that were quite important. In an article written by the Saturday Evening Post, the author speaks of an act made by Eisenhower that connects 209 of the 237 cities with advanced highway roads and …show more content…

However, Eisenhower, being the president, wanted Americans to feel safe so even if there were to be a huge problem, he may tell the citizens that it is all good in order to increase productivity and decrease outbursts. This makes his speech questionable as we wonder if Americans were being hysterical for a reason or not. Unfortunately for Eisenhower this did not help the fears of the American people, as telling someone not to be scared whilst creating a military arsenal can be quite contradicting to certain listeners. Following this speech, similar speeches by political advocates started showing up everywhere. In a speech by John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state, he explains that Guatemala has become a threat and if communism were to touch America in any state regardless of size, then Americans would have to step up and sacrifice more and more until they can fully get rid of communism. Considering John Foster Dulles is the secretary of state, it is important to note that he most likely would have to dumb down the circumstances and speak in a way that all Americans will understand, which unfortunately can cause

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