Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Prologue: Preparing for the Presidency -- PART 1 MACRO-LEVEL ECONOMIC POLICIES -- 1 Setting a Consistent Course, 1953-1956 -- 2 Economic Policy in Good Times, 1955-1957 -- 3 Narrowing the Course, 1957-1961 -- PART 2 MICROECONOMIC POLICIES -- 4 Agriculture: A Tough Battle -- 5 A Coalescing Antitrust Policy -- 6 Foreign Economic Policy -- Epilogue: The Eisenhower Legacy -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Essay on Primary Sources -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y.

Osgood focuses on major campaigns such as Atoms for Peace, People-to-People, and cultural exchange programs. Drawing on recently declassified documents that record U.S. psychological operations in some three dozen countries, he tells how U.S. propaganda agencies presented everyday life in America to the world: its citizens living full, happy lives in a classless society where economic bounty was shared by all. Osgood further investigates the ways in which superpower disarmament negotiations were used as propaganda maneuvers in the battle for international public opinion. He also reexamines the early years of the space race, focusing especially on the challenge to American propagandists posed by the Soviet launch of Sputnik.

Three years out of eight, President Eisenhower achieved a balanced budget.

As the United States struggled to respond to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik in 1957, President Eisenhower received a top secret report prepared by a committee of leading scientific, business, and military experts. The panel, called the Gaither Committee in recognition of its first chair, H. Rowan Gaither Jr., emphasized the inadequacy of U.S. defense measures designed to protect the civilian population and the vulnerability of the country's strategic nuclear forces in the event of a Soviet attack. The committee concluded that in the event of a surprise Soviet attack, the United States would not be able to defend itself. The years following Sputnik and the Gaither Committee's report were a watershed period in America's cold war history. During the remaining years of the Eisenhower administration, the intensification of the cold war caused the acceleration of an arms race that dramatically raised the stakes of any potential conflict. The Gaither Committee was at the center of debates about U.S. national security and U.S.-Soviet relations. The committee's recommendations led to increases in defense spending and the development of our nuclear arsenal.

An analysis of Eisenhower's leadership and managerial style and exploration of the significance of the decisions Eisenhower made on a whole range of issues, from civil rights to atomic testing.

Provides historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes information abstracted from over 2,000 journals published worldwide.

During the Cold War era, the United States faced the prospect of expanding its power in Central America. But we miscalculated—grievously. After 1945, Central America teemed with leaders willing to alter the region's quasi-colonial status. Some, like Fidel Castro, sought out revolution to shatter the status quo. Others, like Anastasio Somoza Garcia, attempted to seek out new directions along more subtle paths. Nicaragua subsequently challenged American hegemony in a manner at once more deliberate and more dangerous than any other effort in the hemisphere. The Somoza regime, unlike its contemporaries, chose to utilize American institutions and American preferences to subvert the latter's power rather than reinforce it. American arrogance, combined with a complacent approach to policy in its global backyard, offered a myriad of political, military, and economic opportunities to a leader willing to take risks. In the years after 1945, Somoza was thus able to peel away layers of clientage until, at certain moments, he could act as a partner of his northern neighbor.

Engel reveals the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Great Britain. As allies, they fought Communism; as rivals, they clashed over which would lead the Cold War fight. Engel shows that one key to the quest for sovereignty and hegemony was airpower, which created jobs, forged ties with the developing world, and ensured military superiority.