Hannah Denney

Brooke Halford
HIST-1700-408-F16
12/7/16
Document Analysis Paper #5: U.S. Cold War Relations
For this assignment we were asked to define what John Foster Dulles and President
Eisenhower felt were the most important issues facing Americans post World War 2. We were
then asked how these issues compared and contrasted with Nikita Khrushchevs onion on the
issue.
John Foster Dulles described the new post World War 2 issue for Americans as a
struggle to preserve their independence from the predatory ambitions of Communist
imperialism (Dulles, 1865). Dulles was concerned that the communists were relentlessly trying
to pursue control of the United States. He was convinced that communist imperialism was a
threat to American independence. He felt that in order to maintain independence America needed
to work on increasing its defensive security and economic health (Dulles, 1865).
President Eisenhower described the new post World War 2 issue for Americans as the
potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power (Eisenhower's Farewell Address, 1961). He
warns that we should never let our liberties or democratic process be endangered. And that we
should take nothing for granted (Eisenhower's Farewell Address, 1961). From these sentiments
we can conclude that Eisenhower was worried that we were not ready as Americans to deal with
the threat of Communist Imperialism.
Nikita Khrushchev saw things from a different perspective. He espouses that the
communist movement merely wants the best for each society in which it is involved. Khrushchev
claimed that The Leninist principle of peaceful co-existence of states with different social

systems has always been and remains the general line of our countrys foreign policy.
(Khrushchev, 1865). He believed that Communism hade left countries far better off than when
they had found them, a claim that he did not feel the US could honestly make. In the end he felt
that different social systems should be able to exist together in peace.
Think that each of these men wanted the same thing in the end. A cessation of hostilities
on all sides and a brighter future for everyone. Eisenhower and Dulles felt that the only way
forward was to insulate ourselves from the threat of communism and preparation should the need
for war come about. They both saw communism as a virus threatening to overtake their beloved
country. Khrushchev however, thought that the way forward was learning to deal with each other
peaceably and treat each other with respect since they each had a different point of view. I agree
with Khrushchevs stance.