How Did Dwight D. Eisenhower Use The Highway System?

Before Dwight D. Eisenhower became president of the United States in 1953, he had been a career military man.Shortly after the end of World War I, then-Lieutenant Colonel Eisenhower participated in a War Department project.It involved a convoy of army vehicles driving from the East Coast to the West Coast.Right? Well, at that time, there were few highways.The War Department hoped to make a point: There was a desperate need for better, safer, and faster highways in America.The convoy, consisting of 81 vehicles and 282 members of the military, departed on July 7, 1919.It covered 3,251 miles in 62 days-a "World's record," one military officer stated, for "Total continuous distance traveled." Half the trip took place on dirt roads and more than
economy.A highway system also allowed for the transportation of goods and people. Eisenhower included national defense in his argument for better roads, too.During the Cold War2, the potential for a catastrophic nuclear war loomed large in Americans' imagination.Fears of nuclear bombs dropping on U.S. cities forced the federal government to consider how it could safely evacuate an estimated 70 million people.The government believed that wellbuilt and well-designed highways should be part of the solution.As Eisenhower noted in his memoirs, "Our roads ought to be avenues of escape for persons living in big cities threatened by aerial attack or natural disaster, but I knew that if such a crisis occurred, our...highways, too small for the flood of traffic of an entire city's people going one way, would turn into traps of death and