and defensive capabilities. 43 While Eisenhower rejected this proposal, Snead
argues that it nevertheless strongly influenced US nuclear policies for the remainder of his term. 44
Eisenhower, who had sought to limit the defence budget to $38 billion in
1958, increased spending by $1.44 billion in the wake of the Sputnik crisis,
partly due to the concern surrounding the vulnerability of the strategic complex and external public and political pressures. 45 Despite this increase, however, the
President saw no military reason to accelerate the nation’s ICBM and IRBM
programmes, or to expand conventional forces - party due to the covert U2 spy
programme that revealed the USSR were behind on missile development -
which led to a significant rise in tensions on America’s domestic and political front. 46 Eisenhower wanted to put forward a new defence budget that would lead to greater confidence in public opinion on the US security sphere. 47 Yet,
Eisenhower failed to address the public adequately, never convincing them that
his defence measures were sufficient against the rising Soviet threat. Much of
the public was alarmed by opportunistic military leaders and opposition
Democrats who promot ed the idea that an alleged ‘missile gap’ was emerging that represented a great threat to US security. 48 The critiques held by academics
and political rivals became the shared opinion of major periodicals throughout
the country: ‘America is now hedonistic, soft, lazy and obsessed with
meaningless objects, while in contrast to the USSR, ‘a far from backwards
43 Phillip Nash, Eisenhower, ‘Nuclear Weapons, and Arms Control’ in A Companion to Dwight D. Eisenhower , ed. by Chester J. Pach (Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, 2017), p.342. 44 Ibid, p.342.
45 Divine, p.169. 46 Wegner, p.84. 47 Ibid, p.84. 48 Nash, p.343.
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