How Did Truman And Kennedy Use Flexible Responses

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3 Cold War Presidents All 3 presidents had a close encounter with a war on communism. Truman and Eisenhower’s speeches spoke about the policy of containment to try to fight communism, while Kennedy speech talked about the flexible response. All 3 presidents wanted to get rid of or contain communism. Communism is the economic and political system where the government runs all the businesses and takes all the money, then evenly distributes the money evenly among the whole country (Ayers 850). The Flexible Response is a method so in times of crisis we could respond in other methods rather than nuclear warfare (Ayers R97). The policy of containment is the policy to try to stop the spread of communism (Ayers R97). The first president is Truman. He used the policy of containment. We gave economic aid to Greece to keep them from going to communism (Truman 2). We gave money to countries to try to get them out of poverty so communism wouldn’t take over. If communism took over the world could be taken over by communism. Truman gave military aid to greece too (Truman 2). He sent troops over seas to help Greece fight off the communists (Truman 4). The Marshal plan was then used in Western …show more content…
The Flexible response is avoiding nuclear warfare by being patient and talking things out. He diverted the Cuban Missile Crisis by waiting to see what ship did and did not bomb the ship which would’ve led to full on nuclear warfare (Kennedy 14). In his speech he said “our country would pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty” (Kennedy 13). Kennedy was involved in the arms race (Kennedy 13). The arms race is a race between the United States and the Soviet Union to see who could build the biggest and most destructive weapons. Because of the arms race, Khrushchev ordered the building of the Berlin Wall (Kennedy