In the Eisenhower years, domestic concerns would take a back seat to foreign policy, in the form of Cold War Militarism. By 1957, a commission established by Eisenhower would recommend, in a document called the Gaither Report, a massive conventional AND NUCLEAR military buildup, on the basis of a frightening picture that it painted of Soviet military power. Robert Lovett, Paul Nitze and John McCloy were appointed to the panel in advisory roles.

During the Truman Administration, it was Eisenhower who had participated actively in disseminating the doctrine of 'Containment Militarism' to a wider circle of 'opinion-making elites' after this policy was outlined by Paul Nitze in his secret 1950 policy paper known as NSC-68 (National Security Council Memorandum 68):

Eisenhower set the sombre tone in the beginning by stating the twin propositions that 'the Soviet objective is world domination, and the Russian leaders are willing to use armed force to win.' Secondly, Ike contended, 'the American people are responsible for this country's present position. The moment the fighting ceased in World War II the cry was to bring Willie home. Now we are reaping the results of that policy.' To reverse this trend, he argued, would require additional expenditure for defense and a system of universal military service. - Peddlers of Crisis, Saners, p. 65. [for more on NSC-68, follow thread1]

By 1954, in the administration that Eisenhower now headed, Containment Militarism would reach a fevered pitch and manifest, at home and abroad, in the Army-McCarthy Hearings, the execution of the Rosenbergs, the birth of COINTELPRO, and the rampant covert interventions in the affairs of sovereign states. [2] [3] [4] [5].

The US would secretly abandon even the CONCEPT of 'fair play':

On September 30, 1954, Doolittle submitted his 69-page classified report directly to Eisenhower. Declassified in 1976, the Doolittle Report contained forty-two recommendations. The report began by summarizing contemporary American Cold War attitudes following the Korean War:

It is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means and at whatever cost. There are no rules in such a game...If the United States is to survive, long-standing American concepts of 'fair play' must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated and more effective methods than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy. [6]

...Shortly after submitting the written report, General Doolittle voiced his concern to President Eisenhower over the potential difficulties that could arise from the fact that the DCI [Director of Central Intelligence], Allen Dulles, and the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, were brothers and might implement policies without adequate consultation with other administration officials.

...the report criticized the CIA for being too heavily involved in Third-World intrigues while neglecting the collection of hard intelligence on the Soviet Union. Reportedly, Bruce and Lovett went on to express concern about the lack of coordination and accountability of the government's psychological and political warfare program.

... As had Doolittle, Bruce and Lovett criticized the close relationship between Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother DCI Allen W. Dulles. Due to the unique position of each brother, the report apparently expressed concern that they could unduly influence U.S. foreign policy according to their own perceptions. [7]

Who were the Dulles brothers, and what role did they play in the Eisenhower administration? For a meticulously detailed timeline charting the relationship between the Dulles brothers, Prescott Bush and Averell Harriman, see: [8]

Journalist John Pilger, characterizes Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz as holders of a lineage of ideological fanatics that traces back to the Dulles brothers:

The ascendancy of Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, and associates Richard Perle and Elliot Abrams [in the George W Bush Administration] means that much of the world is now threatened openly by a geopolitical fascism, which has been developing since 1945 and has accelerated since 11 September.

The present Washington gang are authentic American fundamentalists. They are the heirs of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, the Baptist fanatics who, in the 1950s, ran the State Department and the CIA respectively, smashing reforming governments in country after country - Iran, Iraq, Guatemala - tearing up international agreements, such as the 1954 Geneva accords on Indochina, whose sabotage by John Foster Dulles led directly to the Vietnam war and five million dead. Declassified files now tell us the United States twice came within an ace of using nuclear weapons. [9]

For more on Allen Dulles, head of Nazi intelligence Reinhardt Gehlen, and the creation of the CIA and the Cold War, see: Reinhardt Gehlen, at this site.

Finally, here is Noam Chomsky (1995), on the public relations conundrum the Dulles brothers faced after WWII:

The relevant background begins at the end of World War II when the United States assumed, out of self-interest, responsibility for the welfare of the world capitalist system.

In mid-1958 the Dulles brothers -- one of them was Secretary of State, the other the head of the CIA -- in a private conversation were deploring what they called the 'communist ability to get control of mass movements, something we have no capacity to duplicate'.

'Unlike us they can appeal directly to the masses', President Eisenhower complained.

Then John Foster Dulles explained the reason for this unfair advantage that they had. He said: "the poor people are the ones they appeal to and have always wanted to plunder the rich. That's the great problem of history and somehow we find it hard to sell our values, namely that the rich should plunder the poor."

That's a kind of public relations problem that no one has yet quite figured out how to overcome. And because we can't overcome it we are forced to resort to our comparative advantage in violence and terror. [10]

Wealth siphoned upwards - the flip side of the trickle-down-economics coin. Not very popular domestically. But neither was U.S. opposition to democracy and social reform in the Third World countries that were victims of its foreign policies:

In one high-level document after another, US planners stated their view that the primary threat to the new US-led world order was Third World nationalism ...

Opposition to democracy and social reform is never popular in the victim country. You can't get many of the people living there excited about it, except a small group connected with US businesses who are going to profit from it.

... The United States was not, however, lacking in compassion for the poor. For example, in the mid- 1950s, our ambassador to Costa Rica recommended that the United Fruit Company, which basically ran Costa Rica, introduce "a few relatively simple and superficial human interest frills for the workers that may have a large psychological effect."

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles agreed, telling President Eisenhower that to keep Latin Americans in line, "you have to pat them a little bit and make them think that you are fond of them."

Given all that, US policies in the Third World are easy to understand. We've consistently opposed democracy if its results can't be controlled. The problem with real democracies is that they're likely to fall prey to the heresy that governments should respond to the needs of their own population, instead of those of US investors.

- From "Our Commitment to Democracy: What Uncle Sam Really Wants" (1993), by Noam Chomsky

For information on how Neil McElroy, Secretary of Defense under Eisenhower, established the Biological and Chemical Defense Planning Board in 1960, see: [11].

And for a history of the National Security Council, 1953-1961, see: " [12]"