Eisenhower and the missile gap

by Peter J. Roman

Uncertainty about Soviet intentions and capabilities after the launch of Sputnik required changes in U.S. strategic nuclear policy; Peter J. Roman draws from recently declassified archives to examine one of the most unstable periods in the Cold War. Roman argues that presidential leadership from 1957 to 1960 was crucial to national security. Dwight D. Eisenhower was, he argues, actively involved in all nuclear policy making. Eisenhower's responses to the extreme uncertainty of the late 1950s shaped American nuclear policy for decades, and in its internal deliberations his administration anticipated much of the subsequent public debate. Eisenhower and the Missile Gap investigates a variety of issues, actors, and institutions to explain how a government deals with high levels of technological uncertainty.