by Lewis English Foxcroft

Created on: October 17, 2007

During the policy forming years of the cold war it was left down to two men so separated by their past but united in their common goal, the threat of Soviet Russia and the protection of American interests abroad. Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower were the 33rd and 34th Presidents of the United States of America respectively and presided over the maturation of the cold war into a global concern. The two men differed greatly in personality and ideology and this subsequently lead to the differing approaches to the Soviet threat. Truman was a "plain speaking " farmer from Missouri who, despite having no higher education he had a meteoric rise to the White House and this was thanks mainly to his "Native Intelligence ." Eisenhower on the other hand was Supreme Allied Commander in World War II who although came from a relatively poor family received his education at the prestigious United States Military Academy at West Point, Texas. If one is to assess whether Eisenhower and Truman differed or agreed on their approach to the Soviet Union one must look at the policy that they followed, NSC-68 for Truman and the New Look policy for Eisenhower.

The maturation of the Cold War was also the birth of the grand strategy.NSC-68 is seen as a definitive strategy on dealing with the Soviet threat but Marc Trachtenberg sees NSC 68 as self constraining:

"The U.S government never tried to do more than defend the status quo by then it was too late for the Truman administration to use its power the way Acheson would have liked. "

In regards to Eisenhower's strategy he believes it juxtaposes Truman's, "The basic idea of an aggressive policy was opposed by key figures in the administration it was essentially a defensive strategy " according to Trachtenberg, the differences between the two may be brought down to the fact that Truman strategy was purely offensive with very little room for diplomacy whereas Eisenhower's was purely defensive with no real room for a full committal to military intervention. This argument appears only to scratch the surface of the confliction between the policies of both men and does not detail factors such as the policies history, ideological differences and pragmatic response.

In 1950 Director of Policy Planning Paul Nitze published NSC-68. The report was published as the "rapid development of the cold war " began, including the first soviet nuclear test, the separation of Germany and the aftermath of the fall of china to Mao Zedong. NSC-68 promoted

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