Introduction

Cold War America, the era after World War II and until 1960, has been described by numerous writers. At the end of the 1950s liberals lambasted those years for their conformity, some of the dullest and dreariest in all our history, and they complained about the emphasis on money and consumerism— the age of the slob. In 1946 the economy sputtered, inflation soared, and strikes became so common that President Harry Truman lamented Peace is Hell. Overseas, the wartime alliance of Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union was crumbling over postwar issues. The Korean War had menacing implications. At home, many American men were called back into the military, disrupting families. Abroad, both the United States and the Soviet Union possessed the atomic bomb. Soon, both nations were accumulating large stockpiles of nuclear weapons, including the more powerful H-bomb.