Today we tend to think of the Republicans as the more militant party, but in many ways during the Cold War it was the Democrats. It was under Truman’s administration that the Democrats lost China which led to many claiming that Democrats were soft on communism. No one questioned Ike’s stance against communism, or his vice president Richard Nixon. So, in 1960 it was JFK that had to prove he was a Cold Warrior when he made statements like, “Freedom and Communism are in a deadly embrace; the world cannot exist half slave and half free.”
Historically Speaking 