Why did so many Americans believe there was a crisis of power by the end of the 1950s? Had the nation, in fact, become less powerful?

The 1950s were a decade marked by the post-World War II boom, the dawn of the Cold War and the Civil Rights movement in the United States ... For example, the nascent civil rights movement and the crusade against communism at home and abroad exposed the underlying divisions in American society. The nation became less powerful after the war.