13. Defense spending decreased during the 1950s
As he left office at the beginning of the 1960s, President Eisenhower warned the nation to beware of the growing influence of what he termed the “military-industrial complex”. Eisenhower’s use of the term implied a form of collusion between defense contractors and the military procurement system at the expense of the American taxpayer. When the 1950s began, the first defense budget (under Truman) was $141.1 billion. By 1953, the first year of the Eisenhower Administration, the budget stood at $442.3 billion, the highest of the decade. The year marked the last of the Korean War, and the budget declined slightly each year, but by 1960 it still stood at $344 billion, has never dropped below $300 billion for the rest of the decade after the Korean War ended.
An important but largely forgotten element of the 1950s is the military draft continued throughout the decade, and through the ensuing 1960s as well. Elvis was drafted, in March 1958. He served most of his stint in the Army in Germany. Although America denied it was the world’s policeman, it had global military commitments in the 1950s which forced it to maintain a larger standing Army than it had before the Second World War and the Korean War. Nonetheless, the Army continued to reduce in the size of its active units following the Korean War, sending more and more troops to reserve status, and the number of men drafted declined throughout the decade. The draft remained though, because voluntary enlistment declined as well, in part because Army and Navy pay were well below the level which could be earned in even unskilled worker jobs in the civilian economy.
