occupations that were the subject of wartime negotiations between the leaders of the three major allies—and Stalin’s fears of a revitalized, powerful Germany put the two blocs in direct opposition to each other.The Cold War was born.

Irrespective of certain mutual interests—such as French concerns about a unified Germany; Communist subversion in Greece and Italy; Soviet repression of political movements in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and other countries and regions; and, most importantly, Soviet detonation of its first atomic bomb in 1949—all contributed to the atmosphere in which retired General Dwight Eisenhower made the transition to president of the United States.

While Harry Truman had acquitted himself quite well in dealing with foreign policy—due in no small part to his willingness to trust in the advice of such foreign policy heavyweights as Dean Acheson and George Marshall—he lacked the detailed knowledge of military and general national security matters that his successor in the Oval Office possessed. President Eisenhower had served as Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force of Europe during the war, so he understood the burdens of command and the fragilities of international politics better than most. His was often a calming influence despite the turbulent times the world experienced.

He inherited from his predecessor the burden of the United States' strategy in the Korean War, an especially difficult issue. The North Korean invasion of the South in 1950 was viewed by many Americans as a manifestation of the broader communist threat to what was called “the Free World.” Chinese intervention following General Douglas MacArthur’s catastrophic miscalculation served to greatly heighten American fears of communism—a trend followed by the French experience in Indochina (the precursor to the American military role in Vietnam and Laos) and, in 1957, the Soviet launch of Sputnik, the world’s first satellite.

Throughout all of this, the American public was wracked with fears of communism and of nuclear war. School children were famously educated in “duck and cover” exercises in the event of a nuclear attack. American politicians, most infamously Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, became caught up in these fears and, in the case of McCarthy, some exploited public anxiety to wage political battles against those they suspected, truthfully or not, of communist sympathies.

The entertainment industry was a major target, with public hearings held by House and Senate committees (e.g., the House Committee on Un-American Activities, or HUAC) and many careers in that industry were ruined. Paranoia about communist infiltration of the American government were validated with the revelation of Soviet spy rings in the Department of State as well as in the United States, British, and Canadian atomic energy/nuclear weapons areas.

So, how did Eisenhower respond to all of this? Some argue that he did very little to allay public fears and to derail the activities of Red-hunting organizations like the HUAC. That may be true. What he did do, however, was not allow international developments to escalate out of control. He understood the dangers and the potential for miscalculations and provided a calming, reassuring presence.

Nowhere was this presence more visible than in the Suez Crisis of 1956, in which British, French, and Israeli forces seized the strategic Egyptian waterway following Egyptian President Gamal Nasser’s moves to nationalize the canal and use that control to influence regional and global events. Rather than rush to support his World War II allies and the newly-created State of Israel, Eisenhower criticized their actions and demanded they return control of the canal to Egypt, a growing strategic partner of the Soviet Union.

President Eisenhower probably could have done more to combat the extremes of anti-communist hysteria in the United States. He was not helped, however, by Soviet actions that fed into those fears, including the aforementioned espionage activities that contributed to the development of the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal and that subverted political systems in Europe.

Anti-communist hysteria and superstition permeated every aspect of American life. Because the war had no large-scale fighting between the two sides, it was easy for Americans to apply their own image to a foe that they scarcely understood. One of the biggest fears held by Americans was that the Russians were in charge of an international communist conspiracy involving every communist country, and that they were bent on world domination or at least overthrowing the United States.

This paranoia was a easy catalyst for some shifty political maneuvers, and McCarthyism increased hysteria by blacklisting American politicians with zero regard for the evidence. While Eisenhower certainly used some of McCarthy's ideals to gain momentum for the Republican party, the mass paranoia had been somewhat curbed by the end of his term.

If you are doing a DBQ for AP, I seriously suggest that you try to figure out yourself what the documents are saying and how to use them.  AP students I've taught have often had trouble with this and the DBQ is a big deal...

The main fears of the American people were that the USSR and other communist countries would either A) cause a war that might end with nuclear destruction, B) take over enough of the world that the US would be isolated or C) subvert American democracy from within.

By the end of Ike's administration people were less concerned than they had been at the start.  You can see this in how the McCarthy era sort of died off.  But A and B were still enough of worries that JFK made a lot of headway against Nixon by talking about the supposed "missile gap."

If you want to ask me about the documents, you can tell me what you think and I'll respond, but I seriously think you should give it a shot yourself.