ABSTRACT

Popular stereotypes picture the 1950s as deeply conformist and sometimes anxiety ridden-simply a prelude to the more glitzy and tumultuous 1960s. Such generalizations are easy to grasp, but hardly do justice to the time period. Like any decade, the 1950s was rife with contradictions and complexity. As such, thermonuclear weapons and global atomic policy were major contributing factors. A new era of Cold War leadership emerged in 1953 after the death of Joseph Stalin in the USSR and because of the election of Dwight Eisenhower in the United States. With new leaders came new approaches and fresh problems, but the dynamics of a world dominated by two superpowers locked in an arms race grew more intense. By late in the decade, atmospheric testing and the Sputnik crisis brought home the realization that the bomb had become a local threat. A new atomic reality defined the Age of Anxiety. The 1950s era did not officially begin with the election of Dwight Eisenhower, but a new phase of America’s atomic age certainly did. The texture and tone of the Cold War changed, especially as it extended deeper into Asia and the Middle East. People felt the vast grip of the bomb and the uncomfortable sense of insecurity linked to it as deterrence made way to brinksmanship. The fear of fallout became less an abstraction than an insidious peril. Hope was in short supply, and risk grew deeper.