Did Eisenhower’s

New Look
Defence Policy
Make America
Safer or Not?

By Nevin Power

1
 The foreign policy of the United States under the Presidency of Dwight D Eisenhower

was one that is now often viewed under the complete umbrella of the New Look, or more

accurately, the policy of Massive Retaliation. This was a policy that came to the forefront of

public attention after a speech by Eisenhower‟s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, to the

Council on Foreign Relations on January 12, 1954, just five days after President Eisenhower

himself had declared in his State of the Union address that it would be American policy to

maintain “a massive capability to strike back”1. The actual roots of this thinking however lay

further back in time with Eisenhower‟s own belief in fiscal conservatism, limited government

and a remembrance of an American standing army that had, prior to the Second World War,

been relatively small. Eisenhower certainly did not want to reduce the US army to what it had

been prior to that war but he did want to reduce military expenditure by relying more on

strategic, read nuclear, weapons. The Massive Retaliation policy would then achieve two

aims at once – it would help to reduce what Eisenhower saw as wasteful government

expenditure while at the same time bringing about the develop of a comprehensive doctrine

for the usage of atomic weapons. Although the Pentagon was never enamoured with spending

cuts Eisenhower‟s intentions for the Massive Retaliation policy were reasonable and clear. As

much as the US needed defence capabilities, it also needed to have a vibrant economy that

would safeguard, in itself, the American way of life and this would only occur, he believed, if

inflationary government spending was cut. The guidelines of the Truman administration‟s

document NSC-68 were deemed as being too broad and militaristic to be sustainable for

Washington into the future while the massive US lead in nuclear weapons capability was seen

as almost useless if not exploited. Thus rather than troops having to be at the beck and call of

a policy of containment, the US would save money and instead use a psychological weapon,

the threat of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons, if the Soviet Union or China was

1
Samuel F. Wells, Jr., „The Origins of Massive Retaliation‟, Political Science Quarterly 1 (1981), pp. 31 – 52:
33.

2
deemed to be acting too aggressively towards the West. As much as the policy was clever it

also had many shortcomings for it is probable that no one was ever quite sure how far the US

was willing to be pushed before Eisenhower would give the order for Strategic Air Command

to hit Moscow. Not only that but, as Dulles noted, could its allies depend on the US to invite

nuclear disaster on itself in their defence? Perhaps the most profound effect of the Massive

Retaliation policy was the subsequent Soviet build up in ICBM‟s and the acceleration of an

arms race in the area of hydrogen bombs and long range delivery systems. It is this last effect

that perhaps marks the policy as being one that made the US less safe than it had been prior

to its initiation.

The terms „Massive Retaliation‟ and „New Look‟ are often used interchangeably in

the context of Eisenhower‟s reorganisation of America‟s defence posture possibly due to the

usage of the latter term by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Arthur Radford

at the Press Club in Washington in December 19532 and the subsequent use of the former in

Dulles‟ speech the following month. The two terms however are not as interchangeable as

they may seem to be. The New Look was Eisenhower‟s policy to reduce government

expenditure on defence through a reorganisation of the various sectors of the defence

establishment in order to cut down on waste and duplication between services. Truman‟s

defence budgets had been notoriously high through both the implementation of NSC-68

which called for a massive military build-up in order to better challenge the Soviet Union and

also because of the ongoing war in Korea. In 1952 the defence budget reached a high of

$566.8 billion (in constant value 2007 dollars)3. This figure, while unprecedented in the

2
Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House years: Mandate for change (New York, 1963), p.449.
3
Warren Wheeler, „The American Defense Budget‟, 18 September, 2007, Centre for Defense Information
(online). Available: http://www.cdi.org/PDFs/Defense%20Spending%20Over%20Time.pdf

3
immediate years before it, was one that Eisenhower believed to be unsustainable and a drain

on the economy if allowed to go unchecked. While the ending of the Korean War certainly

assisted in deflating the defence budget, a genuine effort was made by Eisenhower to lower

the budget anyway as he sincerely believed in a more prudent defence policy as outlined in

NSC 162/2 where “the maintenance of a sound, strong and growing economy”4 was cited as

being the second most important factor in securing the US. It should be noted though that his

first defence budget was triple the one of 1950 but yet he stated repeatedly that “long-term

security required a sound economy”5 which for him meant less defence spending. Eisenhower

put this most explicitly in his Chance for Peace speech where he explained that the “cost of

one modern heavy bomber is this...it is two fine, fully equipped hospitals”6. During his

election campaign Eisenhower had repeatedly criticized the defence policy of President

Truman as being reactionary, negative, and composed of fighting the Soviets on terms that

Moscow was deciding. The stalemated Korean War was seen as testament to this but

Eisenhower promised a “policy of boldness”7 in order to retake the initiative in the Cold War

fight and allow America to choose it‟s battles rather than having to, through an orthodox

belief in containment, act at any time to all forms of perceived Communist aggression.

However, despite this change in policy Eisenhower was quite aware of the need not to appear

weak on defence, and thus damage US credibility in the face of any possible threats from

Moscow. This is where Massive Retaliation appears as the consequence of the New Look

policy. As Washington could not afford to continue with expanding its various armed

4
James S. Lay, „A Report to the National Security Council (NSC 162/2)‟, National Security Council
(Washington DC, 1953), pp. 1 – 27: 6. Available: http://ftp.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-162-2.pdf
5
Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House years: Mandate for change (New York, 1963), p.452.
6
Dwight D. Eisenhower, „A Chance for Peace‟, 16 April, 1953. Washington DC, 1953. Dwight D. Eisenhower
Memorial Commission (online). Available:
http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/speeches/19530416%20Chance%20for%20Peace.htm
7
Samuel F. Wells, Jr., „The Origins of Massive Retaliation‟, Political Science Quarterly 1 (1981), pp. 31 – 52:
32

4
services, and knowing it could never come close to matching the manpower available to the

Soviets, it decided to build a huge lead in nuclear weapons which would be delivered through

the strike-force of Strategic Air Command8. The cost of maintaining a vast force of nuclear

weapons far outweighed the budgetary implications of granting more divisions to the army as

soldiers and other associated personnel invariably cost more to the government than did

nuclear weapons. Wholesale cutbacks were not on the agenda though as Eisenhower, in his

1954 State of the Union address, spoke about the heavy emphasis that air power, through

both the air force and the navy, would garner through his administration9. This was, of

course, because the nuclear weapons that would be the cornerstone of his defence policy

would be delivered by means of aircraft and not ICBM‟s which were still an item not yet in

any mature stage of development. However not only would this policy of Massive Retaliation

save money, it would also allow the Eisenhower administration to develop a doctrine for the

usage of nuclear weapons through the assumed guidelines and rhetoric associated with the

policy. This was something that, it could be argued, was missing from American defence

policies under the Truman administration and perhaps remained so even through the Massive

Retaliation policy years. This was to prove to be a major stumbling block in the actual

success of the policy itself, and would lead to its eventual disintegration through both of the

Eisenhower administrations. While it certainly disintegrated as policy through the later years

of his second term in office, cracks appeared in the policy from the very beginning as no clear

limit was set on how much aggression the US was willing to tolerate before using its vast

nuclear forces. How would its Allies in Europe know for certain at which point the US would

launch a defence of them in the case of an attack from the Soviet Union because in doing so it

would itself be inviting a nuclear attack on mainland America? At the same time it must be

8
Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower the President (London, 1984), p. 171.
9
Samuel F. Wells, Jr., „The Origins of Massive Retaliation‟, Political Science Quarterly 1 (1981), pp. 31 – 52:
33.

5
asked how applicable the strategy was to limited wars? With so many questions left

unanswered the policy could never be as successful as hoped because it brought about a

measure of confusion inside the White House and defence departments leading to the policy

continually being revised and patched up in order to fit different situations.

The Eisenhower election campaign contained various hints that the former Supreme

Commander of NATO would, through the New Look foreign policy, attempt to roll back

Communism from some countries on the periphery of the Soviet sphere of influence. This

view was most adamantly put forward by John Foster Dulles and although it would probably

have been impossible to carry out, the policy of Massive Retaliation would not allow for it

anyway which shows from the outset an immediate contradiction in policy terms. This of

course is not to say that the Eisenhower administration did not work around this by using the

CIA in such instances as the Iranian coup and also in the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala

but this usage of covert forces was not designed as part of the Massive Retaliation strategy.

Despite realising they could not roll back Communism, both Eisenhower and Dulles did

realise that they could possibly use the policy to prevent its spread. Early on in the

administration both men agreed on the usefulness of the policy as shown by the apparent

success of the nuclear diplomacy that they waged against North Korea and China in order to

stop any aggression that may have restarted the Korean War, an ending of which was an

Eisenhower election campaign promise. The threat of nuclear war was also used by the two

men against China in order to bring an end to the Quemoy-Matsu crisis10. While Dulles, more

so than Eisenhower, advocated a policy of brinksmanship in which the US would “undertake

certain efforts to prevent further significant expansion of Soviet power, even at the risk of

10
Campbell Craig, Destroying the village: Eisenhower and thermonuclear war (New York, 1998), p.50.

6
war”11, it was shown that this belief did not coexist as well with the policy of Massive

Retaliation as it perhaps should have. As Secretary of State he made it clear that Washington

should not be afraid to act just because of a fear of Soviet retaliation but seemed to change

position when Vice President Nixon pronounced that “...we would rely primarily on our

mobile retaliatory power which we could use in our discretion against the major source of

aggression at times and places that we chose”12. Dulles was quick to distance himself from

this aggressive rhetoric when he later wrote publicly that if there was deemed to be

Communist aggression somewhere in Asia then nuclear weapons would not necessarily be

dropped on China or Russia13. This was almost an about-turn on what the New Look policy

was meant to entail and so, again, the question of when the Eisenhower administration would

use nuclear weapons was still left unanswered. The fact that two of the most public figures in

the administration held wildly varying, almost unpredictable views, towards the usage of

nuclear weapons through the policy of Massive Retaliation should have been a cause for

concern and a sign early on that the policy was one that would prove too inflexible in the

Cold War struggle with Moscow. While Dulles‟ position as regards the usage of nuclear

weapons softened, his new position conflicted with President Eisenhower‟s guidelines which

were formulated into NSC 5422/2 showing yet more divisions within the administration. Ever

since toning down his earlier rhetoric on the policy of Massive Retaliation, Dulles had moved

to a point where he intended to remove the stigma from the usage of nuclear weapons due to

technological developments which would allow them to be used tactically in the battlefield.

Thus they could be used in instances of smaller, localized conflicts of which the Massive

11
John Lewis Gaddis, „The Unexpected John Foster Dulles: Nuclear Weapons, Communism, and the Russians‟,
in Richard H. Immerman, (ed.), John Foster Dulles and the diplomacy of the Cold War (Princeton, 1990), pp 47
– 77: 50.
12
Samuel F. Wells, Jr., „The Origins of Massive Retaliation‟, Political Science Quarterly 1 (1981), pp. 31 – 52:
35.
13
John Foster Dulles, „Policy for Security and Peace‟, Foreign Affairs 3 (1954), pp. 353 – 364: 359.

7
Retaliation policy was at its weakest. However Eisenhower held a much more ominous view

in that he knew the usage of nuclear weapons would lead to an all out nuclear exchange

which “would threaten the survival of Western civilization and the Soviet regime”14 while

also pointing out that any war between the two superpowers could not be limited with tactical

nuclear weapons but rather it would be waged “with all available weapons”15. Despite these

more realistic notions Eisenhower was still quoted as saying that his administration would

allow tactical nuclear weapons to be used “just as exactly as you would use a bullet or

anything else”16. Even with this announcement it is still clear that Dulles and Eisenhower

were certainly not singing from the same hymn sheet and this continued to be the case for

some time as Eisenhower, in a world of atomic weaponry, could not seem to comprehend the

concept of a limited war and thus the almost constant reliance on a policy of Massive

Retaliation with no in-built flexibility clause. On top of this, and even with the changing

rhetoric associated with the policy, the question of when nuclear weapons would actually be

used was still one that remained largely unanswered and this was a cause of aggravation for

the Eisenhower‟s Joint Chiefs. The President did state to the Joint Chiefs that he would

approve them for use in any war with the Soviets while the Joint Chiefs argued that if both

superpowers possessed atomic weapons then both sides would deter each other from using

them to a point where the US could rely on this to prepare instead for smaller wars17.

Eisenhower again did not see any war between the superpowers being confined to

conventional weapons and kept to the view that there was no point in trying to fight the

Soviets with more troops as the US had but 5 divisions in Europe, the Soviets had 35 times as
14
John Lewis Gaddis, „The Unexpected John Foster Dulles: Nuclear Weapons, Communism, and the Russians‟,
in Richard H. Immerman, (ed.), John Foster Dulles and the diplomacy of the Cold War (Princeton, 1990), pp 47
– 77: 53.
15
Campbell Craig, Destroying the village: Eisenhower and thermonuclear war (New York, 1998), p.49.
16
Campbell Craig, Destroying the village: Eisenhower and thermonuclear war (New York, 1998), p.52.
17
Campbell Craig, Destroying the village: Eisenhower and thermonuclear war (New York, 1998), p.60.

8
many and thus atomic weaponry could be the only answer to this disparity18. This further

clashing of viewpoints marked out the policy of Massive Retaliation as being one that, in its

inflexibility, was making the US less safe then it could possibly have been. This contradiction

was to become ever more pronounced with the growing international concern about the

policy and the impending Soviet nuclear build up.

Eisenhower‟s firm stance on Massive Retaliation was based on the premise that the

US would always maintain a huge lead in the production and deliverability of nuclear

weapons as emphasized by the defining document of the Massive Retaliation policy, NSC

162/2 of 1953, wherein it states that the US should “conduct...development so as to insure

superiority in quantity and quality of weapons systems”19. This lead was vital so that the

policy would act as a threat against the Chinese and the Soviets. Without a viable threat the

policy would only bring about a stalemate as predicted by NSC 162/2 which stated that

“increasing Soviet atomic capability may tend to diminish the deterrent effect of US atomic

power against peripheral Soviet aggression”20. A stalemate, while it would possibly allow

both sides to possess nuclear weapons and yet not use them, would have many repercussions

for American policy and despite the possibility of it perhaps bringing about an uneasy peace,

make the US less safe than it had been before the policies implementation. Before

Eisenhower‟s policy of Massive Retaliation was unveiled Soviet atomic capability was

growing but with the acceleration of nuclear technologies and the higher dependence on these

18
Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House years: Mandate for change (New York, 1963), p.453.
19
James S. Lay, „A Report to the National Security Council (NSC 162/2)‟, National Security Council
(Washington DC, 1953), pp. 1 – 27: 7. Available: http://ftp.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-162-2.pdf
20
James S. Lay, „A Report to the National Security Council (NSC 162/2)‟, National Security Council
(Washington DC, 1953), pp. 1 – 27: 4. Available: http://ftp.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-162-2.pdf

9
weapons that the Massive Retaliation policy demanded, Moscow had no choice but to attempt

to develop its own system of Massive Retaliation. It was the only logical choice for the

leaders in The Kremlin as it could not allow itself to be dictated to by a United States that,

through the means of atomic weaponry, had the constant opportunity to launch a pre-emptive

strike. While the New Look policy, and its conception of Massive Retaliation, was a middle

ground whereby the US could fulfil its defence obligations without overspending, it was also

a policy which was not flexible enough in order to reassure its allies throughout the world,

much less calm a Soviet Union which, once it had built up its own nuclear base, no longer

need fear it. In fact in a memorandum Rear Admiral of the US Navy, Roy Johnson, suggested

that the Soviets would, due to nuclear parity, be encouraged to increase their aggressiveness

in Cold War and limited-war fronts21. Nuclear parity would not have had to occur had

Eisenhower not initiated a policy in order to gain the, so-called initiative in the Cold War, and

while it is acceptable that the costs of Truman‟s defence policies were too much for the US

economy to bear in the long term, a nuclear build up, along with the early aggressive rhetoric

as espoused by Vice-President Nixon and by Secretary of State Dulles, only served to bring

about a response from the Soviets in terms of it building up its own nuclear deterrent. This

response, along with the varying positions of many important people in the Eisenhower

administration on the subject of the usage of the policy served to bring about fears that US

allies were soon to contemplate their own position viz-a-viz American nuclear policy. The

strategy, if it were not to work as a deterrent, it was feared, would undermine US credibility

as it was predicted that some allies may drift towards a policy of neutralism in order to

preserve themselves should a future nuclear exchange occur. This would most certainly hand

the Cold War initiative to the Soviet Union and the fact that the inflexibility of the policy
21
Roy M. Johnson, (Rear Admiral, US Navy). Memorandum to distribution list, ‘Adaptation of the National
Military Posture to the Era of Nuclear Parity; a Suggested Navy Position‟, 3 December, 1957, pp. 1 – 6: 2.
National Security Archive (online). Available: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb275/02.pdf

10
allowed this contemplation to arise at a serious level is testament to the weakness of the

policy. By 1958 Dulles was to changing his thoughts on the subject of the Massive

Retaliation policy exactly due to the fear of losing the confidence of allies. He was fearful

that “our allies are coming to feel that the US would not in fact inaugurate general nuclear

war in the event of a limited attack by the Soviet Union and that...to help them will

increasingly be a purely theoretical thing”22. Dulles had good reason to fear this because even

though the Quemoy-Matsu crisis was resolved through the use of nuclear threats Eisenhower

had said that “what point would there be in defending Quemoy and Matsu if...Taiwan and

beyond were destroyed with nuclear weapons?”23. As discussed earlier in this essay there

often seemed to be confusion as to the applicability of Massive Retaliation and here again

was an example but this time in the midst of a crisis whereby a US ally was seeking support.

Not only would a nuclear response to the launching of a limited Communist attack cause the

US itself to be destroyed by a Soviet nuclear response but with the rising ability of the

Soviet‟s to launch a surprise attack on the US, much like the US could do to the Soviets,

further fears were espoused. Strategic Air Command, the US means by which nuclear

weaponry would be delivered to targets within the Soviet Union, was vulnerable to Soviet

surprise attack, a move that was not beyond the bounds of possibility for the US had

contemplated launching a pre-emptive strike on Soviet nuclear facilities in order to prevent a

nuclear arms race and the possibility of the US itself being destroyed in a nuclear exchange.

This was discussed earlier in the Eisenhower presidency but by 1957 this was deemed

impossible due to Soviet missile installations being kept under total secrecy while “SAC

22
Gerard Smith, (Assistant Secretary – Policy Planning). Memorandum of Conversation with: John Foster
Dulles and members of the Department of Defence. 20 June, 1969, pp. 1 – 10: 2. National Security Archive
(online). Available: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/special/doc07.pdf
23
Campbell Craig, Destroying the village: Eisenhower and thermonuclear war (New York, 1998), p.85.

11
cannot get to Russia before the Soviet SAC launches”24. At this stage then Massive

Retaliation had proven itself to be inflexible, viewed as untrustworthy by US allies and now it

had also brought about, to a considerable degree, the threat of a Soviet nuclear strike upon the

continental United States. Due to the lead that the Soviets held in ICBM design at this time

the US had no real protection against Soviet nuclear weapons as its SAC was quite vulnerable

to a surprise attack of which there would only be a warning time of up to 30 minutes. The

report, Security and Deterrence in the Nuclear Age, more commonly known as the Gaither

Report, stated in 1957 that “the current vulnerability of SAC to surprise attack...and the threat

posed to SAC by the prospects of an early Russian ICBM capability, call for prompt remedial

action”25. However Eisenhower had actually, upon the recommendations of his scientific

advisors, given the approval to a full scale ICBM and IRBM missile development programme

back in 1955 due to intelligence that the Soviets were far ahead with their own research26.

Despite this the US was still far behind Soviet developments come the year of the Gaither

Report which showed again that the Massive Retaliation policy was not working to the terms

of its founding document NSC 162/2 which had stated that the US had to “conduct and foster

scientific research...for (the) successful prosecution of a general war”27. It should be noted

that Eisenhower was relatively calm in his reaction to the confirmation of a powerful Soviet

ICBM through the launch of Sputnik and this is something that should be commended for

Sputnik itself posed no threat to the US and while the threat of Soviet ICBM‟s, while great,

may still have been exaggerated by others for political benefit, it is the broader picture that

24
Roy M. Johnson, (Rear Admiral, US Navy). Memorandum to distribution list, ‘Adaptation of the National
Military Posture to the Era of Nuclear Parity; a Suggested Navy Position‟, 3 December, 1957, pp. 1 – 6: 1.
National Security Archive (online). Available: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb275/02.pdf
25
Security Resources Panel, „Deterrence and Survival in the Nuclear Age (The Gaither Report)‟, Science
Advisory Committee (Washington DC, 1957), pp. 1 – 34: 5. Available:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB139/nitze02.pdf
26
Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House years: Mandate for change (New York, 1963), p.456.
27
James S. Lay, „A Report to the National Security Council (NSC 162/2)‟, National Security Council
(Washington DC, 1953), pp. 1 – 27: 7. Available: http://ftp.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-162-2.pdf

12
must be examined. Eisenhower and Dulles, through their Atoms for Peace concept, were

possibly searching for an exit strategy from the all or nothing approach that the inflexible

Massive Retaliation policy had given them. This had failed and so the policy had to continue

which resulted in the Soviet development of their nuclear force and their own ICBM‟s. The

primary reason for the development of this Soviet force was the earlier development of a

comparable American force and as such then the Massive Retaliation policy had brought

about an arms race in the area of nuclear weaponry and the attached delivery systems. While

a nuclear war did not occur, perhaps giving credence to the point that a mutual stalemate had

been brought about by relatively equal nuclear forces, there had never been a greater threat of

it than under Eisenhower‟s presidency due to the policy of which he pursued and surely this

must be viewed as being one of his greatest failings.

The policy of Massive Retaliation was one that on the surface appeared strong and

readily designed to prevent either China or the Soviet Union from pursuing any aggressive

policies towards the West. However the actual substance of the policy was seen to be sorely

lacking especially as Eisenhower went through his second term in office. This was not

because the policy was not a benevolent one but simply because it failed to predict accurately

the future situation of the Soviet Union having an ability as large as that of America‟s itself,

to launch a nuclear strike. At the same time there was confusion through the administration

on just what the policy would mean and when and how it would ever be used. Initially though

the policy was an extremely practical and forward-looking one which would deal with two of

the most pressing elements confronting the newly installed Eisenhower administration. It

would bring about a doctrine for nuclear weapons policy while also assisting Eisenhower in

his noble desire to take America‟s focus away from massive military spending and more

towards building a country which would serve as a better example of the capitalist way of life

13
for the rest of the world to see. While it can be argued that the policy was indeed not a

complete failure, the situations of the time tend to go against this grain of thought as the US

military believed that “Hungary was defaulted primarily for lack of divisions in Europe”28.

This may not necessarily be true because neither did the US have enough divisions in either

Quemoy-Matsu or perhaps even towards the ending of the Korean War, both of which the US

garnered results through using nuclear diplomacy. However on the international stage, as a

whole, the policy was always on the edge of failure because severe doubts were felt about US

commitment to its allies due to the all-or-nothing premise of the policy and the almost certain

destruction of the US itself in defence of an ally. These doubts were compounded as time

went by and the revelation by Moscow that the Soviet Union had an advanced nuclear strike

capability, thus cancelling out any psychological threat effects that Massive Retaliation still

held. In hindsight perhaps the policy could never have been a success for it was inevitable

that it would launch a nuclear arms race as Moscow could not afford to be unresponsive

towards the threat of complete nuclear annihilation. This race, with the launch of Sputnik and

growing Soviet economic progress, seemed to be one that America was slowly beginning to

lose and brought forth the opportunity for many in America to proclaim a missile gap and to

exaggerate the Soviet threat for political gain. Overall then the policy was one which began

with promise but which almost inevitably made the US less safe than it could have been had

it not brought upon itself an opposing apocalyptic threat.

28
Roy M. Johnson, (Rear Admiral, US Navy). Memorandum to distribution list, ‘Adaptation of the National
Military Posture to the Era of Nuclear Parity; a Suggested Navy Position‟, 3 December, 1957, pp. 1 – 6: 5.
National Security Archive (online). Available: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb275/02.pdf

14
Bibliography

Abbot, P., „Eisenhower, King Utopus and the Fifties Decade in America‟, Presidential
Studies Quarterly 1 (2002), pp. 7 – 29.

Ambrose, S.E., Eisenhower the President (London, 1984).

Brands, H.W., „The Age of Vulnerability: Eisenhower and the National Insecurity State‟, The
American Historical View 4 (1989), pp. 963 – 989.

Craig, C., Destroying the village: Eisenhower and thermonuclear war (New York, 1998).

Director of Central Intelligence, NIE – 31, „Soviet Capabilities for Clandestine Attack
Against the US With Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Vulnerability of the US to Such
Attack (mid 1951 – mid 1952)’, 30 August, 1950. National Security Archive (online).
Available: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb267/01.pdf

Dulles, F.R., America’s rise to world power (New York, 1954).

Dulles, F.R., „Policy for Security and Peace‟, Foreign Affairs 3 (1954), pp. 353 – 364.

Eisenhower, D.W., The White House years: Mandate for change (New York, 1963).

Eisenhower, D.W., „A Chance for Peace‟, 16 April, 1953. Washington DC, 1953. Dwight D.
Eisenhower Memorial Commission (online). Available:
http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/speeches/19530416%20Chance%20for%20Peace.htm

Gaddis, J.L., (ed.), Cold War statesmen confront the bomb: Nuclear diplomacy since 1945
(Oxford, 1999).

Immerman, R.H., (ed.), John Foster Dulles and the diplomacy of the Cold War (Princeton,
1990).

Jackson, M.J., „Beyond Brinksmanship: Eisenhower, Nuclear War Fighting and Korea, 1953
– 1968‟, Presidential Studies Quarterly 1 (2005), pp. 52 – 75.

Johnson, R.M., (Rear Admiral, US Navy). Memorandum to distribution list, ‘Adaptation of

Lay Jr., J.S., „A Report to the National Security Council (NSC 162/2)‟, National Security
Council (Washington DC, 1953), pp. 1 – 27. Available: http://ftp.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-
hst/nsc-162-2.pdf

Lemmer, G.F., „The Air Force and Strategic Deterrence 1951 – 1960‟, United States Air
Force Historical Liaison Office, December 1967. National Security Archive (online).
Available: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb249/doc09.pdf

Richardson, E., The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower (Lawrence, 1979).

Small, M., „The Domestic Side of Foreign Policy‟, Magazine of History 3 (1994), pp. 15 –
19.

Smith, G., (Assistant Secretary – Policy Planning). Memorandum of Conversation with: John
Foster Dulles and members of the Department of Defence. 20 June, 1969, pp. 1 – 10.
National Security Archive (online). Available:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/special/doc07.pdf

Warshaw, S.A., (ed.), Re-examining the Eisenhower Presidency (Westport, 1993).

Wells Jr, S.F., „The Origins of Massive Retaliation‟, Political Science Quarterly 1 (1981), pp.
31 – 52.

Wheeler, W., „The American Defense Budget‟, 18 September, 2007, Centre for Defense
Information (online). Available:
http://www.cdi.org/PDFs/Defense%20Spending%20Over%20Time.pdf

16