At the beginning of 1957, the U.S. in an attempt to compete with the USSR in the race for armaments, went ahead in the development of guided missiles with nuclear warheads. At this point, the USSR seemed keen on having talks on disarmament. While the conference on disarmament i.e. to stop the testing of nuclear weapons and to reduce to conventional arms. The conference was deadlocked as the USSR could not come to an agreement on the issue of aerial inspection issue.

One of the reasons for this could be attributed to the fact that Russia too had by 1957 successfully tested intercontinental ballistic missiles, much stronger than the ones developed by the U.S. In October 1957, the USSR launched the first successful satellite in space called Sputnik. The U.S. quickly joined the race. Three months later, the U.S. launched its own satellite. Once again, the U.S. began reconsidering and re-evaluating the missile strength and technical skill of the USSR And in 1958, Eisenhower urged the Congress to further strengthen the nation’s defenses and to give more aid, both military and economic, to the underdeveloped countries.