Cold War Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Khrushchev, Eisenhower, and de-Stalinization=== [[File:1959 NATO and WP troop strengths in Europe.svg|thumb|NATO and Warsaw Pact troop strengths in Europe in 1959]] In 1953, changes in political leadership on both sides shifted the dynamic of the Cold War.{{sfn|Karabell|1999|p=916}} [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] was inaugurated president that January. During the last 18 months of the Truman administration, the American defense budget had quadrupled, and Eisenhower moved to reduce military spending by a third while continuing to fight the Cold War effectively.{{sfn|LaFeber|1993|pp=194β197}} Joseph Stalin [[Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin|died in 1953]]. Without a mutually agreeable successor, the highest Communist Party officials initially opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly through a troika headed by [[Georgy Malenkov]]. This did not last, however, and [[Nikita Khrushchev]] eventually won the ensuing power struggle by the mid-1950s. In 1956, he [[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences|denounced Joseph Stalin]] and proceeded to ease controls over the party and society. This was known as [[de-Stalinization]].{{sfn|Karabell|1999|p=916}} [[File:Voroshilov, Khrushchev, Kekkonen.jpeg|thumb|left|From left to right: Soviet [[head of state]] [[Kliment Voroshilov]], Soviet premier [[Nikita Khrushchev]] and [[President of Finland|Finnish president]] [[Urho Kekkonen]] at Moscow in 1960]] On 18 November 1956, while addressing Western dignitaries at a reception in Moscow's Polish embassy, Khrushchev infamously declared, "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. [[We will bury you]]", shocking everyone present.{{efn-ua|"[https://web.archive.org/web/20070124152821/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,867329,00.html We Will Bury You!]", ''[[Time (magazine)|Time magazine]]'', 26 November 1956. Retrieved 26 June 2008.}} He would later claim he had not been referring to nuclear war, but the "historically fated victory of communism over capitalism."{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|p=84}} In 1961, Khrushchev boasted that, even if the Soviet Union was currently behind the West, its housing shortage would disappear within ten years, consumer goods would be made abundant, and the "construction of a communist society" would be completed "in the main" within no more than two decades.{{sfn|Tompson|1997|pp=237β239}} Eisenhower's secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, initiated a "[[New Look (policy)|New Look]]" for the [[containment]] strategy, calling for a greater reliance on nuclear weapons against US enemies in wartime.{{sfn|Karabell|1999|p=916}} Dulles also enunciated the doctrine of "[[massive retaliation]]", threatening a severe US response to any Soviet aggression. Possessing nuclear superiority, for example, allowed Eisenhower to face down Soviet threats to intervene in the Middle East during the 1956 [[Suez Crisis]].{{sfn|LaFeber|1993|pp=194β197}} The declassified US plans for retaliatory nuclear strikes in the late 1950s included the "systematic destruction" of 1,200 major urban centers in the Soviet Bloc and China, including Moscow, East Berlin and Beijing.{{sfn|Bradner|2015}}{{efn-ua|See also: [http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear-Target-List-Declassified-First-Ever/ U.S. Cold War Nuclear Target Lists Declassified for First Time]. [[National Security Archive]]. 22 December 2015.}} In spite of these events, there were substantial hopes for dΓ©tente when [[Nikita Khrushchev#Early relations and U.S. visit (1957β1960)|an upswing in diplomacy took place in 1959]], including a two-week visit by Khrushchev to the US, and plans for a two-power summit for May 1960. The latter was disturbed by the [[1960 U-2 incident|U-2 spy plane scandal]], however, in which Eisenhower was caught lying about the intrusion of American surveillance aircraft into Soviet territory.{{sfn|Paterson|Clifford|Brigham|Donoghue|2014|pp=306β308}}{{sfn|Schudson|2015}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page