The Bomb Scare is the name given to the general sense of paranoia in the United States at the governmental and social level in the early 1960's following the advent of the nuclear weapon by the French Empire in 1959. The Bomb Scare is attributed to the electoral victory of John E. Hoover in 1960, the development of the American nuclear weapon by 1962, the various overhauls of the US defense establishment throughout the 1960's, the expansion of America's role overseas, the founding of NATO, and the success of the right-of-center, pro-military National Party, who controlled the executive branch for sixteen years by painting the Democrats, who controlled Congress for much of the same period, as weak on foreign policy.