Answer by James H. Nolt
Eisenhower had two main ways to deal with the Cold War perceptions of the Communist threat: one was emphasizing covert action (largely through the CIA) and the other moving away from conventional warfare to all-out reliance on massive retaliation in the form of nuclear war. Eisenhower actually cut the military budget, in part because of the end of the Korean War, and focused more on the air force as the principal means of delivering nuclear weapons while cutting the navy and army. This caused those two services to scramble to find ways to tailor their forces for nuclear war, leading to the navy’s emphasis on the Polaris missile submarines and a nuclear strike role for its aircraft carriers while the army developed tactical nuclear weapons systems delivered by mobile rockets and heavy artillery. Fortunately for the survival of the planet, the USSR had no aggressive intent, but instead formulated the doctrine of “peaceful coexistence.” If there had been a world war at that time it would have obliterated civilization if not all human life given the massive production of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons under Eisenhower.
Despite the absence of Nazi-style conventional aggression by the USSR, communism as a political force was still on the march, especially in much of the developing world. Ostensibly Eisenhower met this with a much expanded effort of economic development aid. Some of this aid was designed to help spread US corporate influence abroad. I published a research paper and book chapter about this. But much of it was cover for various covert programs to gain influence over police and military forces in developing countries to enlist them in a US-directed anti-communist crusade. “Communism” was defined so broadly that it included liberal elected governments in places like Iran and Guatemala. It also involved erecting client dictatorships in many other countries, including in Thailand, South Vietnam, Laos (all important for the developing Vietnam War), plus parts of Latin America and Africa as the latter was moving toward independent nations. Fascist dictatorships in Spain and Portugal were enlisted into the US-led “Free World” as well. These actions frequently aligned the US against the development and consolidation of democracy in much of the world as the spate of dictatorships established by US-trained police and military forces expanded to most of Latin America, Greece, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, and more of Africa during the 1960s and 1970s. Eisenhower laid the groundwork for this.
Eisenhower’s efforts to contain communism failed dramatically in nearby Cuba when Castro and his communist revolutionaries overthrew the US-government and mafia-supported Batista dictatorship at the end of 1959. Other oppressive anti-communist regimes, such as those of Egypt, Syria and Iraq, nevertheless leaned away from the US and eventually toward the USSR as their local adversaries — Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran — drew closer into the US orbit. Eisenhower became broadly unpopular in Latin America as the US was seen to lean toward pro-business police states rather than supporting democracy. Finally, Eisenhower’s policy of imposing the unpopular and incompetent Diem dictatorship in South Vietnam and backing corrupt anti-communist opium growers’ militias in Laos set the stage for the growth of communist support in Indochina and the eventual US defeat in Vietnam and neighboring Laos and Cambodia. Ultimately, the legacy of Eisenhower’s covert action was decades of oppressive regimes, increased corruption, the decline of democracy, and growing anti-Americanism in much of the developing world.