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admin — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 00:10:04 +0000

Republicans of the 1950s (as today) wanted a strong national defense AND low taxes. Possible???? In the fifties, the country–safely out of the Great Depression–faced recession after recession after recession as the country was involved in a “race” with the Soviet Union for developing delivery systems (which would mean reliance on air power versus expensive land forces). American planes could hit the USSR, drop bombs, and return, but Soviet planes could not do the same with the US. So, delivery systems were key. The worry then became the “missile gap”–which many Americans believed in; they concluded that the gap was against the US (in large part because of the Soviets ‘ beating the Americans into space–with a satellite, with a man, etc.). However, as John Kennedy discovered when he became president in 1961, the gap was IN FAVOR of the US. Because of Cold War fears, the nuclear race continued even despite treaties limiting testing. The result? Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) and more countries (including China) becoming nuclear powers in the 1960s. The dangerous world of the 1950s seemed to be less so than the dangerous world of the 1960s.

Comments on: Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Inaugural Addresses

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