body politic suffered severe spasms

Sixteen years after Acheson’s speech, four election cycles – half of which were won by Republicans – the body politic suffered severe spasms. Democrat Kennedy won in ‘60, partly because of his Cold Warrior posture. He claimed that the Soviets had developed an advantage in the arms race that came to be known as a “missile gap.” Johnson, who served Kennedy’s last year, won reelection in ’64 in a weird kind of posthumous rally round the dead president phenomenon.

"On the streets of Chicago, antiwar protesters massed in the downtown area, determined to force the Democrats to nominate McCarthy. Mayor Richard Daley responded by unleashing the Chicago police force. Thousands of policemen stormed into the crowd, swinging their clubs and firing tear gas. Stunned Americans watched on TV as the police battered and beat protesters, reporters, and anyone else in the way. The protesters began to chant, 'The whole world is watching. The whole world is watching.'"
(To say that political dissent was discouraged is to put it mildly. That’s why it is so important to continue to speak up and demand the truth from our elected officials. The seed that blossomed into the violence of that night was planted 16 years and 1 day earlier, during the elections of 1952, when Adlai Stevenson tried, in vain to warn America not to trust the scoundrels who use patriotism as a weapon to harm political opponents.)
"The world--and the American nation--was indeed watching that night. What they were witnessing was a serious fracture beginning to develop in America's previously solid Cold War consensus. For the first time, many Americans were demanding that their nation withdraw from part of its war against communism. North Vietnam, instead of being portrayed as the villain and pawn of its Soviet masters, was seen by some as a beleaguered nation fighting for independence and freedom against the vast war machine of the United States."
(There is some truth to that view. The Viet Minh had defeated the French Colonial forces in a long and bloody war that started shortly after the end of WWII and dragged on until 1954.
Then the CIA, at the behest of the Eisenhower White House, took over the effort to make the area safe for our multi-national corporations to exploit.)
"The convention events marked an important turning point: no longer would the government have unrestrained power to pursue its Cold War policies. When future international crises arose--in Central America, the Middle East, or Africa--the cry of "No more Vietnams" was a reminder that the government's Cold War rhetoric would be closely scrutinized and often criticized."
The free ride was starting to come to an end. Knee-jerk nationalism had given the military-industrial complex free reign for the better part of two decades and it seemed that our security was decreasing. At least that’s what the fear-mongers were saying everytime they asked Congress to fund a new weapons program. The impunity with which then Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ordered the overthrow of Latin American countries is part of the reason why Hugo Chavez has so much credibility when he berates American foreign policy.
It was the same Mr. Dulles who poisoned the atmosphere for any attempts that we may make to deter the spread of nuclear weapons. His over reliance on the threat of using our growing nuclear arsenal planted the seed of discontent in the minds of those who resented our bullying. That discontent eventually grew into the active pursuit of nuclear weaponry. As is becoming increasingly clear, those with Nukes feel more confident in standing up to our imperial forces.
“throughout the Eisenhower administration, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles urged the president to say that nuclear weapons were like any other weapon that could be used against enemies.”

Thirty seven years after the police rioted in Chicago there’s a new “ism” that the fear-mongers are using to consolidate their power. Terrorism is more useful because it’s vague; it’s a tactic, not a nation or group of people.