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RPK the word "propaganda" has a pejoritve conotation...if U had said the US launched a campaign to inform Americans as to the reasons why Germany was chosen to be the enemy to defeat first ..then I would whole heartedly agree with U.

During the Cold War both Political Parties were on the same page most of the time when it came to National Defense. U didn't hear the Repblicans complaining about how much of a loser Vietnam was, and that was strictily a Democrats war...JFK & LBJ were the big proponents of escaluation. JFK was always the first to increase the Military Budget for fear of being acused of being soft on Communism. The CIA was either stupid or disingenous...the intelliegence data coming out of the USSR from the 70s on was that it was a regime on a course for implosion that its economy was in decline. they either didn't beoeve their own intel or wanted to keep their budget high by keeping the level of threat high.

The Missle Gap was a Kennedy campaign invention...by claiming a missle gap he hoped to get votes by showing the Repblicans to be penny pinching when it came to National Defense and as a result were losing the Cold War. Yet the Eisenhower Admin knew the truth that the USSR was so far behind as to be hardly a threat, yet Eisenhower couldn't come out and say that because he got the intel from the U2 flights that were secret.

BTW: I don't know where U went to school RPK but I learned about that way back in college in the 70s.