344 ChaPter^6
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed
more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world
has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of
threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.Eisenhower’s words were certainly eloquent, but not really meaningful. In
the immediate aftermath of his “Cross of Iron” speech, the U.S. was involved
in places like Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, and dozens of other countries, getting
rid of “Communists” and making those areas safe for American Capitalists to
trade, invest, get raw materials, or obtain cheap labor. While hospitals and
schools were built in large numbers, it did not come at the expense of the
military’s budget, which has continued to grow since that era. Eisenhower
himself authorized a huge buildup in the armed services, especially the Air
Force. Under his policy of “massive retaliation,” the Air Force had a special
role. In order to save money by reducing the size of the Army, the president
produced more planes which could destroy an enemy—and he had the Soviet
Union in mind—much more quickly and efficiently.
Those years immediately following World War II, the onset of the Cold
War, were pivotal in America’s transformation from its prewar goal of staying
out of international problems to being in the middle of virtually every dis-
pute in the world. With a massive military establishment, Atomic bombs, a
state-of-the-art Air Force, incredible wealth brought on by Military
Keynesianism, no real domestic opposition to slow down the national secu-
rity state, and Americans frightened by Communism and mostly willing to
approve of any government policy, the government and ruling class could get
their way on virtually any issue and their power and profits soared to new
levels. The American people, as a result of the red scare, may have had their
liberties limited, but economic growth was so substantial that they were will-
ing to give up some basic freedom in exchange for “security” from radical
political idea and higher wages and better working conditions. Yet, global
stability was still not secured, as the Soviet Union continued to exist and make
its own weapons, thus creating an “arms race” with the U.S. that would ulti-
mately cost the world trillions of dollars, emphasize military solutions to
political crises and ignore human needs and human rights in order to prevent