The 1950s in America are remembered as a kind of golden age in our history, not only because the economy was thriving, people could move from the bustling city to the quiet suburbs , and Humphrey Bogart and Frank Sinatra was still alive, but because things were simple. True, we entered an arms race that would hang like a sword over the heads of the American people for the next thirty years, but other than that, people were comforted by knowing that America was the hero indisputable to defeat. the evil villain. We were a country of Spaghetti Westerns and Superman, and we were too comfortable representing ourselves as the legitimate good. However, as we began to cover Vietnam, more and more Americans began to become skeptical of the administration, and many began to suspect that their own government was also the enemy. With the surge of the civil rights movement and the women's movement, the government attempted to expose the flaws in the system, but there was nothing it could do fast enough to satisfy the people. As the Cold War era heated up, presidents began to become increasingly nervous about their hot-button positions, and this is where we see the trend towards seemingly bungled and clandestine presidencies, with leaders who didn't know how to effectively address the issues. at home and abroad. Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy all had fairly similar policies aimed at promoting racial integration, expanding Social Security, containing the Soviet threat to the Eastern Bloc, and rebuilding postwar Europe under American democratic influence.1 Truman's actions were more so admirable than anything when you consider the immense stress and disapproval he has been subjected to for most of his two terms in office; nevertheless, he is… at the center of the paper… a misunderstanding,” Presidential StudiesQuarterly 36, no. 1 (2006): 59–74. Pach, Chester J., and Elmo Richardson. The presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991. Preble, Christopher A. “'Who Ever Believed in the 'Missile Gap'?': John F. Kennedy and the Politics of National Security,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 33, no. 4 (2003): 801–826. Reichard, Gary W. “Early Returns: Assessing Jimmy Carter,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 20, no. 3 (1990): 603–620. Ripley, C. Peter. Richard Nixon. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. Spalding, Elizabeth Edwards. The First Cold War: Harry Truman, the Containment and Remaking of Liberal Internationalism. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006.Wilson, James Graham. “Did Reagan make Gorbachev possible?” Presidential StudiesQuarterly 38, no. 3 (2008): 456–475.