The Soviet View of the Arms Race During the 1950s and 1960s the United States and the Soviet Union (with its east European satellite allies) engaged in an all-out nuclear arms race. The battle to stockpile massive numbers of atomic weapons involved rapid scientific advance, public displays of powerful weaponry, and accusatory propaganda campaigns. On the twentieth anniversary of victory in World War II, Communist authorities in Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, watched a parade of the latest Soviet ballistic missiles. The Soviet cartoon depicting the United States masking its nuclear threat as the dove of peace reads, “Washington ‘Dove’— Though cleverly disguised, it does not hide its cowardly insides.”

cartoon: Private Collection/Peter Newark Military Pictures/Bridgeman Images