The Eisenhower Years

1
The Eisenhower Years

• 1953-1961

2
Domestic Policy

• Balanced, moderate, centrist
• Bland leading the bland
• Overall, a time of prosperity
• New Deal a part of modern life
• Expands farm aid, Social Security, housing,
  health services
• Highway Act of 1956
• 42,000 miles of interstate highways linking major
  cities
• Improve national defense
• Good for jobs, trucking
• Bad for the poor, public transportation

3
Foreign Policy

• Shaped by John Foster Dulles
• Truman too passive
• Brinksmanship
• Push Communist nations to the brink of war, they
  will back down to U.S. nuclear superiority
• Massive Retaliation
• Focus on nuclear weapons, air power
• H-Bomb in 1953
• Criticized as mutual extinction

4
Technology at War

• 1951 Air Force begins development of
  ICBMsIntercontinental Ballistic Missiles (Atlas
  missiles)
• Aircraft attack forcer of 1700 planes, including
  400 B-47 jets capable of dropping nukes on USSR
• Short range tactical nuclear weapons developed
• Even these more powerful than Hiroshima bomb
• Missiles deployed in Europe and South Korea
• Spy cameras that could take detailed pictures
  from over 70,000 feet
• New solid-fuel missiles (Minuteman missiles),
  over 700 put in place within the United States by
  the 1960s

5
Testing Nuclear Weapons

• US and USSR had been testing h-bombs in the
  Pacific
• Bikini AtollLucky Dragon incident sheds light on
  effects of testing
• Truman Administration had authorized testing in
  the desert of Nevada, Utah
• In 1953, it rained nuclear debris in Troy, NY
  from an atmospheric test in Nevada 48 hours
  before
• Duck and Cover
• Public cries for test ban, negotiations with USSR
• Increase on both sides of underground testing

6
Soviet Concerns

• Stalins Death (1953)
• Khrushchev (1956) peaceful coexistence
• Response to Hungarian Revolt (1956)
• Sputnik (1957)
• Second Berlin Crisis (1958)
• Khrushchev We will bury capitalism
• Construction of Berlin Wall in 1961
• U-2 Incident (1960)
• US plane shot down over USSR
• Sours relations with Ike and Khrushchev

7
McCarthyism

• Senator from Wisconsin, Claimed 205 communists
  working for State Department
• Attacked wealthy privilegedpopular appeal
• Attacked New Deal, other social programs
• Support among conservatives, evangelical
  preachers like Billy Graham, Eastern European
  ethic groups, Midwesterners, anti-Communist
  Catholics
• Many schools and libraries banned social reform
  books such as the Jungle, the Grapes of Wrath
• HUAC expanded hearings
• State Department denied passports to left-leaning
  Americans, including artists, singers, scientists
• Blacklisting in Hollywood

8
Influence of McCarthy

• Internal Security Act (1950)
• Communists, others had to register with new
  Subversive Activities Control Board, members
  ineligible for any govt, defense jobs
• Truman greatest danger to freedomsince the
  Sedition Act of 1798. He vetoes, is overridden
  by huge margins in both houses
• McCarran-Walter Immigration Act (1952)
• Allows FBI surveillance of suspect groups,
  deportation of aliens suspected of
  subversiveness, also vetoed and overridden
• Takes on the Army in 1954 hearings, exposed as a
  bully to millions (Have you no decency, sir)
• Eisenhower had been working behind the scenes,
  investigating attempt to gain draft exemption of
  an aide
• Censured by the Senate for conduct unbecoming a
  Senator
• Dies in 1957, essentially an outcast

9
Trouble in Cuba

• Had been ruled by pro-American Batista regime
  since 1952
• Reformist Lawyer Fidel Castro had been building
  anti-Batista guerilla movement
• Takes power in 1959
• Confiscates foreign owned property, including
  1billion in American interests
• Declares himself communist, allies with USSR
• Eisenhower implements boycott of Cuban goods,
  cuts off economic aid
• Diplomatic ties severed in 1961, including embargo

10
Nationalism in the Third World

• Asia
• Fall of Indochina, Division of Vietnam
• Domino Theory
• SEATO
• Middle East
• Suez Crisis, Soviet Influence
• Eisenhower Doctrine
• OPEC

• Latin America
• CIA overthrows leftist government in Guatemala
• VP Nixon attacked in Venezuela

11
Popular Culture

• Consumer-driven mass economy
• Television
• By 1961, 55 million TV sets
• 3 national networks, bland sit-coms, westerns,
  quiz shows, sports,
• vast wasteland for children, culture
• Advertising
• All media, aggressive
• Shopping centers, credit cards
• Change from mom pop to franchises

12
Popular Culture

• Paperback books
• Reading Increase despite television1 million
  copies a day
• Records
• Mass-marketed, inexpensive LPs or 45s
• Rock and Roll music becomes popular with
  teenagers

13
Popular Culture

• Role of Women
• Mass media reinforced traditional roles
• Lower wages in the workplace
• Social Critics
• Struggle against conformity
• Wanted increased social spending
• Beatniks
• Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg

14
Conformity

• Corporate America
• More white-collar jobs than blue-collar
• Teamwork, conformity, strict dress codes
• Big unions merge (AFL CIO)
• more conservativeindustrial jobs making
  middle-class income
• Suburbs, new cars, new schools, family vacations
• Religion
• After WWII, organized religion expands, becomes
  more tolerant
• 1000s of new churches, synagogues
• Less interest in doctrine, more in socialization,
  identity

15
Civil Rights

• Background
• Post WWI WWII movement to urban areas
• African Americans influencing party politics by
  the 1950s
• Conflicting feelings about Cold War message of
  freedom and democracy

16
Civil Rights

• Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955)
• Rosa Parks, MLK, Jr.
• Civil Rights Acts of 1957 1960
• First since Reconstruction
• SCLC
• Southern Christian Leaders Conference
• Greensboro sit-in
• SNCC

• Landmark in Desegregation
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)
• Federal troops uphold in Little Rock, Ark.
• Little Rock 9