A.P.
Chapter 38: “The Eisenhower Era”
~
1952 – 1960 ~
I.
The
Advent of Eisenhower
1.
In
1952, the Democrats chose Adlai E. Stevenson, the witty governor of
2.
Grandfatherly
Eisenhower was a war hero and liked by everyone, so he left the rough part of
campaigning to Nixon, who attacked Stevenson as soft against Communists,
corrupt, and weak in the Korean situation.
i.
Nixon
then almost got caught with a secretly financed “slush fund,” but to save his
political career, he delivered his famous, touching “Checkers Speech,”
in which he talked about his family and specifically mentioned his cocker
spaniel.
3.
The
“Checkers speech” showed the awesome power of television, since Nixon had
pleaded on national TV, and even later, “Ike,” as Eisenhower was called, agreed
to go into studio and answer some brief “questions,” which were later spliced
in and edited to make it look like Eisenhower had answered questions from a
live audience, when he didn’t.
i.
This
showed the power that TV would have in the upcoming decades, allowing lone
wolves to appeal directly to the American people instead of being influenced by
party machines or leaders.
4.
Ike
won easily (442 to 89), and true to his campaign promise, he flew to
5.
54,000
Americans had died, and tens of billions of dollars had been wasted in the
effort, but American’s took a little comfort in knowing that Communism had been
“contained.”
II.
“Ike”
Takes Command
1.
Eisenhower
had been an excellent commander and leader who was able to make cooperation
possible between anyone, so he seemed to be a perfect leader for Americans
weary of two decades of depression, war, and nuclear standoff.
i.
He
served that aspect of his job well, but he could have used his popularity to
champion civil rights more than he actually did.
2.
The
success of brutal anticommunist “crusader” Joseph R. McCarthy was quite
alarming, for after he had charged onto the national scene by charging that
Secretary of State Dean Acheson was knowingly employing 205 Communist
Party members (a claim he never proved, not even for one person), he ruthlessly
sought to prosecute and persecute suspected Communists, often targeting
innocent people and destroying families and lives.
i.
Eisenhower
privately loathed McCarthy, but the president did little to stop the anti-red,
since it appeared that most Americans supported his actions, but his zeal led
him to purge important Asian experts in the State Department, men who
could have advised a better course of action in Vietnam.
a.
He
even denounced General George Marshall, former army chief of staff
during World War II!
ii.
Finally,
in 1954, when he attacked the army, he went too far and was exposed for the
liar and drunk that he was; three years later, he died unwept and unsung.
III.
Desegregating
the South
1.
Blacks
in the South were bound by the severe Jim Crow laws, and were segregated
in every aspect of society, from schools to restrooms to restaurants and
beyond.
i.
Only
about 20% of the eligible Blacks could vote, due to intimidation,
discrimination, poll taxes, and other schemes meant to keep Black suffrage
down.
2.
Where
the law proved sufficient to enforce such oppression, vigilante justice in the
form of lynchings did the job, and the White murderers were rarely caught and
convicted.
3.
In
his 1944 novel, An American Dilemma, Swedish scholar Gunnar
Myrdal had exposed the hypocrisy of American life, noting how while “every
man [was] created equal,” Blacks were certainly treated worse than Whites.
i.
Even
though Jackie Robinson had cracked the racial barrier by signing with
the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, the nation’s conscience still paid little
attention to the suffering of Blacks, thus prolonging their pain.
4.
However,
with organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, such rulings as the 1950 case of Sweatt vs. Painter,
where the Supreme Court ruled that separate professional schools for Blacks
failed to meet the test of equality, such protestors as Rosa Parks, who
in December 1955, refused to give up a bus seat in the “Whites only” section,
and pacifist leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., who believed in
peaceful methods of civil rights protests, Blacks were making their suffering
and discrimination known to the public.
IV.
Seeds
of the Civil Rights Revolution
1.
After
he heard about the 1946 lynchings of Black soldiers seeking rights for which
they fought overseas, Truman immediately sought to improve Black rights by
desegregating the armed forces, but Eisenhower failed to continue this trend by
failing to pass laws.
i.
Only
the judicial branch was left to improve Black civil rights.
2.
Earl Warren, appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, shocked his
conservative backers by actively assailing Black injustice and ruling in favor
of African-Americans.
i.
The
1954 landmark case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas,
reversed the previous 1896 ruling of Plessey vs. Ferguson by
saying that “separate but equal” facilities were inherently unequal, thus ending
segregation.
ii.
However,
while the Border States usually obeyed this new ruling, states in the Deep
South did everything they could to delay it and disobey it, diverting funds to
private schools, signing and “Declaration of Constitutional Principles”
that promised not to desegregate, and physically preventing Blacks to
integrate.
a.
Ten
years after the ruling, fewer than 2% of eligible Black students sat in the
same classrooms as whites.
V.
Crisis
at Little Rock
1.
Eisenhower
refused to issue a statement acknowledging the Supreme Court’s ruling, and he
even privately complained about this new end to segregation, but in September
1957, when Orval Faubus, the governor of Arkansas, mobilized the
National Guard to prevent nine Black students from enrolling in Little Rock’s
Central High School, Ike sent troop sot escort the children to their classes.
i.
That
year, Congress passed the first Civil Rights Act since the Reconstruction
days, an act that set up a permanent Civil Rights Commission to
investigate violations of civil rights and authorized federal injunctions to
protect voting rights.
2.
Meanwhile,
Martin Luther King, Jr. formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
which aimed to mobilize the vast power of Black churches on behalf of Black
rights—a shrewd strategy, since churches were a huge source of Black power.
3.
On
February 1, 1960, four Black college freshmen launched a “sit-in” movement in
Greensboro, North Carolina, demanding service at a whites-only Woolworth’s
lunch counter, thus sparking the sit-in movement.
4.
In
April 1960, southern Black students formed the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, to give more focus and force to their
civil rights efforts.
VI.
Eisenhower
Republicanism at Home
1.
Eisenhower
came into the White House pledging a policy of “dynamic conservatism,”
which stated that he would be liberal with people but conservative with their
money.
2.
Ike
decreased government spending by decreasing military spending, trying to
transfer control of offshore oil fields to the states, and trying to curb the
TVA’s by setting up a private company to take their places.
i.
His
secretary of health, education, and welfare condemned free distribution of the Salk
anti-polio vaccine.
ii.
Secretary
of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson tackled with agriculture issues, but
despite government purchase of surplus grain, which it stored in giant silos
costing Americans $2 million a day, farmers didn’t see prosperity.
3.
Eisenhower
also cracked down on illegal Mexican immigration that cut down on the success
of the bracero program by rounding up 1 million Mexicans
and returning them to their native country in 1954.
i.
With
Indians, though, Ike proposed ending the FDR-style treatment toward Indians and
reverting to a Dawes Severalty Act-style policy toward Native Americans,
but due to protest and resistance, this was disbanded.
4.
However,
Eisenhower kept many of the New Deal programs, since some, like Social
Security and unemployment insurance, simply had to stay.
i.
However,
he did do some of the New Deal programs better, such as his backing of the Interstate
Highway Act, which built 42,000 miles of interstate freeways.
5.
Still,
Eisenhower only balanced the budget three times in his eight years of office,
and in 1959, he incurred the biggest peacetime deficit in U.S. history.
i.
Still,
critics said that he was economically timid, blaming the president for the
sharp economic downturn of 1957-58.
6.
Also,
the AF of L merged with the CIO to end 20 years of bitter
division in labor unions.
VII.
A
New Look in Foreign Policy
1.
Secretary
of State John Foster Dulles stated that the policy of containment was
not enough and that the U.S. was going to push back Communism and liberate the
peoples under it while toning down defense spending by building a fleet of
superbombers called Strategic Air Command, which could drop massive
nuclear bombs in any retaliation.
2.
Ike
tried to thaw the Cold War by appealing for peace to new Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev at the 1955 Geneva Conference, but the Soviet leader
rejected such proposals, along with one for “open skies.”
3.
However,
hypocritically, when the Hungarians revolted against the USSR and appealed to
the US for help, America did nothing, earning the scorn of bitter freedom
fighters.
VIII.
The
Vietnam Nightmare
1.
In
Vietnam, freedom fighter Ho Chi Minh had tried to encourage Woodrow
Wilson to help the Vietnamese against the French, but as Ho Chi became
increasingly Communist, the U.S. began to fight it.
2.
In
March 1954, when the French became trapped at Dienbienphu, Eisenhower’s
aides wanted to bomb the Viet Minh guerilla forces, but Ike held back,
fearing plunging the U.S. into another Asian war so soon after Korea, and after
the Vietnamese won, Vietnam was split at the 17th parallel,
supposedly temporarily.
i.
Ho
Chi Minh was supposed to allow free elections, but soon, Vietnam became clearly
split between a Communist north and a pro-Western south.
3.
Secretary
Dulles created the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization to emulate NATO,
but this provided little help.
IX.
A
False Lull in Europe
1.
In
1955, the USSR formed the Warsaw Pact to counteract NATO, but the Cold
War did seem to be thawing a bit, as Eisenhower pressed for reduction of
arms, and the Soviets were surprisingly cooperative, and Khrushchev publicly
denounced Stalin’s brutality.
2.
However,
in 1956, when the Hungarians revolted against the USSR, the Soviets crushed
them with brutality and massive bloodshed.
i.
The
U.S. did change some of its immigration laws to let 30,000 Hungarians into
American as immigrants.
X.
Menaces
in the Middle East
1.
In
1953, to protect oil supplies in the Middle East, the CIA engineered a coup in
Iran that installed the youthful shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, as ruler
of the nation, protecting the oil for the time being but earning the wrath of
Arabs that would be repaid in the 70s.
2.
The
Suez crisis was far messier: President Gamal Abdel Nasser, of
Egypt, needed money to build a dam in the upper Nile and flirted openly with
the Soviet side as well as the U.S. and Britain, and upon seeing this blatant
Communist association, Secretary of State Dulles dramatically withdrew his
offer, thus forcing Nasser to nationalize the dam.
i.
Late
in October 1956, Britain, France, and Israel suddenly attacked Egypt, thinking
that the U.S. would supply them with needed oil, as had been the case in WWII,
but Eisenhower did not, and the attackers had to withdraw.
ii.
The
Suez crisis marked the last time the U.S. could brandish its “oil weapon.”
3.
In
1960, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, and Venezuela joined to form the Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC.
XI.
The
Voters Still Like “Ike” in 1956
1.
In
1956, Eisenhower again ran against Stevenson and won easily by a landslide.
2.
The
GOP called itself the “party of peace” while the Democrats assaulted Ike’s
health, since he had had a heart attack in 1955 and a major abdominal operation
in ’56.
i.
However,
the Democrats did win the House and Senate.
XII.
Round
Two for “Ike”
1.
After
Secretary of State Dulles died of cancer in 1959 and presidential assistant Sherman
Adams was forced to leave under a cloud of scandal due to bribery charges,
Eisenhower, without his two most trusted and most helpful aides, was forced to
govern more.
2.
A
drastic labor-reform bill in 1959 grew from recurrent strikes in critical
industries.
3.
Teamster
chief “Dave” Beck was sent to prison for embezzlement, and his
successor, James R. Hoffa’s appointment got the Teamsters expelled out
of the AF of L-CIO.
i.
Hoffa
was later jailed for jury tampering and then disappeared in prison, allegedly
murdered by some gangsters that he had crossed.
4.
The
1959 Landrum-Griffin Acct was designed to bring labor leaders to book
for financial shenanigans and prevent bullying tactics.
i.
Anti-laborites
forced into the bill bans against “secondary boycotts” and certain types of
picketing.
XIII.
The
Race with the Soviets to Space
1.
On
October 4, 1957, the Russians launched Sputnik I into space, and
a month later, they sent Sputnik II out of the Earth as well,
thus totally demoralizing Americans, because this seemed to prove Communist
superiority.
i.
Plus,
the Soviets might fire missiles at the U.S. from space.
2.
Critics
charged that Truman had not spent enough money on missile programs while
America had used its science for other things, like television.
3.
Four
months after Sputnik I, the U.S. sent its own satellite (weighing only
2.5 lbs) into space, but the apparent U.S. lack of technology sent concerns
over U.S. education, since American children seemed to be learning less
advanced information than Soviet kids.
i.
The
1958 National Defense and Education Act (NDEA) gave $887 million in
loads to needy college students and grants for the improvement of schools.
XIV.
The
Continuing Cold War
1.
Humanity-minded
scientists called for an end to atmospheric nuclear testing, lest future
generations be deformed and mutated.
i.
Beginning
October 1958, Washington did halt “dirty” testing, as did the USSR, but
attempts to regularize such suspensions were unsuccessful.
2.
However,
in 1959, Khrushchev was invited by Ike to America for talks, and when he
arrived in New York, he immediately talked about disarmament but gave no means
of how to do it.
i.
Later,
at Camp David, talks did show upward signs, as the Soviet premier said
that his ultimatum for the evacuation of Berlin would be extended indefinitely.
3.
However,
at the Paris conference, Khrushchev came in angry that the U.S. had
flown a spy plane over Soviet territory (the plane had been shot down and
Eisenhower had taken personal responsibility), and tensions immediately
tightened again.
XV.
Cuba’s
Castroism Spells Communism
1.
Latin
American nations resented the United States’ giving billions of dollars to
Europe compared to millions to Latin America, and the U.S.’s constant
intervention (Guatemala, 1954), as well as its support of cold dictators who
claimed to be fighting communism.
2.
In
1959, in Cuba, Fidel Castro overthrew U.S.-supported Fulgencio
Batista, promptly denounced the Yankee imperialists, and began to take U.S.
properties for a land-distribution program, and when the U.S. cut off heavy
U.S. imports of Cuban sugar, Castro confiscated more American property.
i.
In
1961 America broke diplomatic relations with Cuba.
3.
Khrushchev
threatened to launch missiles at the U.S. if it attacked Cuba; meanwhile,
America induced the Organization of American States to condemn communism
in the Americas.
i.
Finally,
Eisenhower proposed a “Marshall Plan” for Latin America, which gave $500
million to the area, but many Latin American felt that it was too little too
late.
XVI.
Kennedy
Challenges Nixon for the Presidency
1.
The
Republicans chose Richard Nixon, gifted party leader to some, ruthless
opportunist to others, in 1960 with Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. as his running
mate; while John F. Kennedy surprisingly won for the Democrats and had Lyndon
B. Johnson as his running mate.
XVII.
The
Presidential Issues of 1960
1.
Kennedy
was attacked because he was the first Catholic presidential candidate ever, but
defended himself and encouraged Catholics to vote for him, and if he lost votes
from the South due to his religion, he got them back from the North due to the
bitter Catholics there.
i.
In
four nationally televised debates, JFK held his own and looked more
charismatic, perhaps helping him to win the election by a comfortable margin,
becoming the youngest president elected (but not served) ever.
XVIII. An Old General Fades Away
1.
Eisenhower
had his critics, but he was appreciated more and more for ending one war and
keeping the U.S. out of others.
2.
Even
though the 1951-passed 22nd Amendment had limited him to two
terms as president, Ike displayed more vigor and controlled Congress more
during his second term.
3.
In
1959, Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states
to join the Union.
4.
Perhaps
Eisenhower’s greatest weakness was his ignorance of social problems of the
time, preferring to smile them away rather than deal with them, even though he
was no bigot.
XIX.
Changing
Economic Patterns
1.
The
economy really sprouted during the 50s, and the invention of the transistor
exploded the electronics field, especially in computers, helping such companies
as International Business Machines (IBM) expand and prosper.
2.
Aerospace
industries progressed, as the Boeing company made the first
passenger-jet airplane (adapted from the superbombers of the Strategic Air
Command), the 707.
3.
In
1956, “white-collar” workers outnumbered “blue collar” workers for the first
time, meaning that the industrial era was passing on.
i.
As
this occurred, labor unions also labored, since most of their members were
industrial workers.
ii.
Women
appeared more and more in the workplace, despite the stereotypical role of
women as housewives that was being portrayed on TV shows such as “Ozzie and
Harriet” and “Leave It to Beaver.”
a.
More
than 40 million new jobs were created.
4.
Women’s
expansion into the workplace shocked some, but really wasn’t surprising if one
observed the trends in history, and now, they were both housewives and workers.
i.
Betty Friedan’s 1963 book The Feminine Mystique was a best-seller and
a classic of modern feminine protest literature.
XX.
Consumer
Culture in the Fifties
1.
The
fifties saw the first Diner’s Club cards, the opening of McDonald’s,
the debut of Disneyland, and an explosion in the number of television
stations in the country.
2.
Advertisers
used television to sell products while “televangelists” like Billy Graham,
Oral Roberts, and Fulton J. Sheen used TV to preach the gospel
and encourage religion.
3.
Sports
shifted west, as the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants moved to Los Angeles
and San Francisco, respectively, in 1958.
4.
Elvis
Presley, a white singer of the new “rock and roll” who made girls swoon with
his fleshy face, pointing lips, and antic, sexually suggestive gyrations,
redefined popular music.
i.
Elvis
died from drugs in 1977, at age 42.
5.
Traditionalists
were shocked by Elvis’s shockingly open sexuality, and Marilyn Monroe (in
her Playboy magazine spread) continued in the redefinition of the new
sensuous sexuality.
i.
Critics,
such as David Riesman in The Lonely Crowd, William H.
Whyte, Jr. in The Organization Man, and Sloan
Wilson in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, lamented this new
consumerist style.
ii.
Harvard
economist John Kenneth Galbraith questioned the relation between private
wealth and public good in The Affluent Society.
a.
Daniel Bell found further such paradoxes, as did C. Wright Mills.
XXI.
The
Life of the Mind in Postwar America
1.
Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and John Steinbeck’s East
of Eden and Travels with Charlie showed
that prewar writers could still be successful, but new writers, who, except for
Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and James Jones’s
From Here to Eternity, spurned realism, were successful as well.
2.
Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s Slaughterhouse-Five
crackled with fantastic and psychedelic prose, satirizing the suffering of the
war.
3.
Authors
and books that explored problems created by the new mobility and affluence of
American life: John Updike’s Rabbit, Run and Couples;
John Cheever’s The Wapshot Chronicle
and The Wapshot Scandal; Louis Auchincloss’s books, Gore
Vidal’s Myra Breckinridge.
4.
The
poetry of Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams,
Theodore Roethke, Robert Lowell (For the Union Dead),
Sylvia Plath (Ariel and The Bell-Jar), Anne
Sexton, and John Berryman reflected the twisted emotions of the
war, but some poets were troubled in their own minds as well, often committing
suicide or living miserable lives.
5.
Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof were two plays that searched for American values, as were Arthur
Miller’s Death of a Salesman and The Crucible.
6.
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun portrayed African-American life
while Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? revealed
the underside of middle class life.
7.
Books
by black authors such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and James
Baldwin made best-seller’s lists; Black playwrights like LeRoi Jones
made powerful plays (The Dutchman).
8.
The
South had literary artists like William Faulkner, Walker Percy,
and Eudora Welty.
9.
Jewish
authors also had famous books, such as J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in
the Rye.
