How was the strategy of massive retaliation supposed to deter the USSR? Why did the Eisenhower administration favor this strategy?
In June 1950, war broke out when communist forces from North Korea invaded South Korea. This war helped the Truman administration win acceptance for the increased military spending recommended in NSC 68. American troops under Gen. Douglas MacArthur were sent to Korea and quickly drove back the communist invaders. When Truman and MacArthur attempted to liberate North Korea from communism, however, China entered the war.
The Korean War soon bogged down into a bloody stalemate, which eventually cost more than 50,000 American lives and undermined Truman's popularity before the original boundary between North and South Korea was re-established in 1953.
In 1952 Americans elected World War II hero Dwight D. Eisenhower as President. Eisenhower changed American Cold War policy by implementing the "New Look," which relied overwhelmingly on nuclear weapons and the threat of massive retaliation, or mutually assured destruction (MAD) to intimidate the USSR. This policy was also known as deterrence. Eisenhower, along with his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, believed that nuclear weapons were much less expensive than conventional armies, and that instilling fear and uncertainty in Soviet leaders was the best strategy to resist communist expansion. They were willing to engage in an arms race with the USSR in order to prevent any expansion of Soviet power.
Soviet Premier Josef Stalin died in 1953 and was succeeded two years later by Nikita Khrushchev. Stalin's death gave some Americans hope that the U.S. would be able to negotiate with the new Soviet leader. Near the end of his second term in office, Eisenhower searched for a means to reduce the danger and expense of the Cold War. A summit meeting scheduled for 1960 between the president and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was canceled after the Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane, and the U.S. refused to apologize for spying on Soviet military bases. In his farewell address to the nation as president, Eisenhower famously warned against the tremendous influence of the "military-industrial complex" in American politics.