Source: Dwight Eisenhower, press conference, March 1954.

There is too much hysteria. You know, the world is suffering from a multiplicity of fears. We fear the men in the Kremlin, we fear what they will do to our friends around them; we are fearing what unwise investigators will do to us here at home as they try to combat subversion or bribery or deceit within. We fear depression; we fear the loss of jobs. All of these, with their impact on the human mind, makes us act almost hysterically, and you find the hysterical reactions.

Source: John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, June 1954.

If world communism captures any American State, however small, a new and perilous front is established which will increase the danger to the entire free world and require even greater sacrifices from the American people.

This situation in Guatemala had become so dangerous that the American States could not ignore it. At Caracas last March, the American States held their Tenth Inter-American Conference. They then adopted a momentous statement. They declared that “the domination or control of the political institutions of any American State by the international Communist movement … would constitute a threat to the sovereignty and political independence of the American States, endangering the peace of America.”

Source: Life Magazine, May 1955.

Source: Saturday Evening Post, October 1956.

On last June twenty-ninth, with President Eisenhower’s signature, one of the most astounding pieces of legislation in history quietly became a law. Public Law 627 represents such a monumental conception of national public works that its accomplishment will literally dwarf any previous work of man…. That new title – the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways – tells the story of the road network, which will receive the major portion of the brave new effort to get this country out of its national traffic jam. The Interstate System … is the 40,000-mile network of existing roads which comprise our trunkline highways; it connects 209 of the 237 cities having a population of 50,000 or more and serves the country’s principal industrial and defense areas.

Source: President John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, January 1961.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty….

Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge, but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.

We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain that they will never be employed. But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course – both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rigidly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind’s final war.

Source: Herblock, The Washington Post, January 1958.

Source: Special Message to the Congress from President Eisenhower on Education, January 1958.

Because of the national security interest in the quality and scope of our educational system in the years immediately ahead, however, the Federal Government must also undertake to play an emergency role. The Administration is therefore recommending certain emergency Federal action to encourage and assist greater effort in specific areas of national concern. These recommendations place principal emphasis on our national security requirements….

If we are to maintain our position of leadership, we must see to it that today’s young people are prepared to contribute the maximum to our future progress. Because of the growing importance of science and technology, we must necessarily give special – but by no means exclusive – attention to education in science and engineering.

Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy, Robert R. Bowie and Richard H. Immerman 2000 p. 3

Eisenhower did not inherit such a strategy from Truman. The latter’s containment policy evolved by stages between 1945 and 1953, largely as a reaction to crises that shaped American perceptions of Soviet purposes and the measures deemed necessary to counter them. After the North Korean attack in mid-1950, the Truman administration adopted a more aggressive strategy known as  NSC 68, to counter the grave threat posed by a Soviet Union then developing a nuclear arsenal.  The ambitious objectives and programs of NSC 68 had the goal of coercing “rollback” of Soviet power through military predominance before the Soviets achieved nuclear plenty–estimated to be 1954, the year of “maximum danger.” This policy led to the tripling of the defense budget, the establishment of integrated North American Treaty ORganization (NATO) forced, and the decision to rearm West Germany.

Kenneth Osgood Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad p. 2 2006

To Americans in the 1950s, however, the Cold War was not a unique state of peaceful competition, but a war waged by other means. Americans might not have been able to define precisely what the Cold War was, but as it intensified, they increasingly perceived it as a total conflict. It was once both like and unlike anything they had experienced–different in the absence of great power war, yet similar in the demands on the American people. The memory of the horrific costs of World War II and the unthinkable consequences of nuclear warfare meant that the Cold War, more than any other conflict in human history, was channeled into nonmilitary modes of combat, particularly ideological and symbolic factors in this conflict then in turn made the Cold War even more all-embracing.

William M. McClenahan Jr. and William H. Becker Eisenhower and the Cold War Economy p. 1 (2011)

Eisenhower took office in January 1953 in a transformed world of international and domestic politics. He had spent much of the previous seven years advising President Harry S. Truman and his administration on how the military should adjust to a new international environment. As a result, Eisenhower became deeply engaged in contemplating the new realities brought about by the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. His professional experiences as an army officer during the interwar period, the war itself, and the postwar Truman administration shaped his thinking about important issues, including the economy. Obviously, Eisenhower had played a major role as a military leader in World War II as a Supreme Allied Commander, Eruope. He understood well the momentous changes that the conflict brought about in warfare, diplomacy, and the United States’ international role.

 Ira Chernus Eisenhower and the Soviets, 1945-1947: Rhetoric and Policy Rhetoric & Public Affairs Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 1999

Every historian who has written on his postwar role has commented on a seeming anomaly: as the official rhetoric coming out of Washington gradually transformed the Soviet Union from ally to mortal enemy, Ike continued to speak of friendship and cooperation between the two superpowers. A closer look at the general's discourse reveals a striking disparity between his public words of amity and his private words, which were closer to the emerging Cold War consensus. The same disparity could be found in other U.S. leaders of the time. But Eisenhower's discursive pattern merits special attention, because he would bring this pattern into the White House and thereby transform American public discourse. It was Eisenhower who first taught the public to desire world peace and make it the highest national aspiration, while still waging the Cold War, and to see no contradiction between the two. As president, he could instill this pattern so successfully because his rhetoric effectively masked and denied the contradiction. When he spoke of peace, he blended Augustinian "realism" and Wilsonian "idealism," as if the two traditions held the same kind of "peace" as their goal. By eliding the differences between them, he made it seem perfectly logical to pursue world peace while waging the Cold War. …Throughout 1946 he urged Americans to extend a peaceful hand to the Soviets. On February 10 he told a disabled veterans' group, "We must deal with those who do not well understand us, just as we do not fully understand them. We must work with those who view our motives with suspicion as we may sometimes be suspicious of their intent___Discouragement must not paralyze your efforts."