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What are the similarities and differences in the way Truman and Eisenhower handled issues relating to the Cold War?

Both presidents were committed to stopping the spread of communism, and took aggressive actions to do so. It was under Truman that the United States led a UN force into the Korean peninsula to stop the invasion of South Korea by the North. Eisenhower brought that war to a conclusion, but threatened to use military force (and indeed did actually send some Marines to Beirut) in the Middle East to stop the spread of communism. Eisenhower also sent substantial economic aid, and some military advisors, to Vietnam in support of the French colonialists at first and then the South Vietnamese anti-communists. Truman had sent billions in aid to Western Europe as part of the Marshall Plan after World War II and committed, under the so-called "Truman Doctrine," to assist any nation that seemed threatened by the potential spread of communism. This policy was known as "containment": simply stopping the spread of communism, it was thought, would eventually lead to its collapse. This was the key policy difference between Truman and Eisenhower. The latter administration pursued a policy known as "brinkmanship," advocated by Eisenhower's Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Dulles thought the United States should exploit its advantage in nuclear weapons to actively undermine communism around the world, not simply "contain" it. This could be achieved, he thought, by essentially threatening to respond to perceived Soviet aggressions with the use of nuclear weapons. This approach led to increased tensions with the Soviets and an "arms race" between the two superpowers.

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