Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (in that office from 1953 to 1959) saw the "containment policy" as putting the United States in a weak position in which all it was doing was responding to communist aggression. The containment policy was recommended by American diplomat George F. Kennan and implemented by the Truman Administration.
Dulles sought to push America's policy in a more active direction; some have labeled his approach "brinksmanship." In an article in LIFE magazine in 1956, Dulles said, "The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art." He wasn't afraid to threaten massive retaliation against communist enemy countries as a way of intimidating them.