The Intense Cold War

The word brinkmanship was put into use by John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state and a big anti-communist. Brinkmanship is the practice of threatening an enemy with massive military retaliation for any aggression. Dulles uped the airforce and went for fallout shelters and air-raid drills. The cold war spread around the world, with the CIA involved, there was a conference held in Geneva where Eisenhower proposed 'open skies', meaning we could fly over Russia without being shot down. This proposal was turned down. Also during this meeting Switzerland made the decision to stay nuetral during the harsh war, but the Middle East and Latin America stayed involved. The U.S. and Britain agreed to help aid Egypt and build the Aswam Dam on the Nile River if Egypt continued to stay loyal to the Nationalists instead of the Communists. But Egypt began to stray off to the communist side, so the Americans and Britains withdraw their offer. This angered Egypt causing the Soviet agression in Hungary to increase. Later the Eisenhower Doctrine was created (January 1957) saying the U.S. would defend the Middle East against attack. The amount of tension from the cold war increased drastically during all these events.