Yeaaaaah, once more the tooled-up Americans strike a blow for mankind.... shoot to kill rather than negotiate!
The aliens once again land only in the US
We get the ridiuclously pious and patronising speech at the end.
Good God, the right-wing 1950's were only missing a few SS uniforms.
The director of the movie, Robert Wise actually intended the movie to be satirical regarding the attitude you described that was so prevalent in America at the time (not just by the military, but by the general populace as well).
The following is part of an interview with Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies, and Wise, who had just been awarded the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award, in which Wise humorously referred to the "cooperation" he received from the nations military while trying to make the movie.
Kreisler - "And was there anything technically challenging in that movie?"
Wise - "Well one thing was very interesting. If you want something from the War Department in Washington, equipment that is, they have to approve the script. Well we sent it to them and they turned us down. We wanted some tanks for them and some jeeps and some uniforms, things like that. They said no. So Fox had a very smart lobbyist in Washington at that time. He got a brilliant idea, he went over to Virginia and got the National Guard. And they didn't have any problem with the script so all the equipment and everything that we had, the tanks, On the set of 'The Andromeda Strain' all came from the National Guard of Virginia, not the War Department. They didn't approve of our message of peace I guess."