Walter Lippmann, often a sharp critic of Eisenhower, agreed: Sputnik represented a failure of American science, ideas, and daring. American leaders had become complacent and anti-intellectual, nurturing a “popular disrespect for, and even a suspicion of, brains and originality of thought.” Low-brow culture had dampened the intellectual firepower of the country. Prosperity had become “a narcotic,” while President Eisenhower, dozing in “a kind of partial retirement,” let the nation drift. Reflecting these morose sentiments, the stock market took its sharpest plunge in two years.
