Chapter 37: The
Eisenhower Era ~ 1952 – 1960 ~
I.
The Advent of Eisenhower
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. Aerospace industries progressed, as the Boeing company made the first
passenger-jet airplane (adapted from the superbombers of the Strategic Air
Command), the 707. In 1956, “white-collar” workers outnumbered “blue collar”
workers for the first time, meaning that the industrial era was passing on. As
this occurred, labor unions also labored, since most of their members were
industrial workers. 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.” More than 40 million new jobs were
created. 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. Betty Friedan’s
1963 book The Feminine Mystique
was a best-seller and a classic of modern feminine protest literature.
II.
Consumer Culture in the Fifties
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. 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. Sports
shifted west, as the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants moved to Los Angeles
and San Francisco, respectively, in 1958. 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. Elvis died
from drugs in 1977, at age 42. 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. 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. Harvard economist
John Kenneth Galbraith
questioned the relation between private wealth and public good in The Affluent Society. Daniel Bell found further such
paradoxes, as did C. Wright Mills.
III.
The
Advent of Eisenhower
In 1952, the Democrats chose Adlai E. Stevenson, the witty governor of Illinois, while
Republicans rejected isolationist Robert
A. Taft and instead chose World
War II hero Dwight D. Eisenhower
to run for president and anticommunist Richard
M. Nixon to be his running mate. 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. 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. 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. 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. Ike won easily
(442 to 89), and true to his campaign promise, he flew to Korea to help move
along peace negotiations…and failed…but seven months later, after Ike
threatened to use nuclear weapons, an armistice was finally signed (but was
later violated often). 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.” 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. He served that aspect of his job well,
but he could have used his popularity to champion civil rights more than he
actually did.
IV.
The Rise and Fall of Joseph McCarthy
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. 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. He even denounced General George Marshall, former army chief of staff during World War 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.
V.
Desegregating American Society
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. Only
about 20% of the eligible Blacks could vote, due to intimidation,
discrimination, poll taxes, and other schemes meant to keep Black suffrage
down. 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. 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. 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. 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.
VI.
Seeds of the Civil Rights Revolution
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. Only the judicial branch
was left to improve Black civil rights. 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. The 1954 landmark case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, reversed the
previous 1896 ruling of Plessy vs.
Ferguson by saying that “separate but equal” facilities were
inherently unequal, thus ending segregation. 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. Ten years after the ruling, fewer than 2% of eligible
Black students sat in the same classrooms as whites. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
VII.
Eisenhower Republicanism at Home
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. 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. His secretary of
health, education, and welfare condemned free distribution of the Salk anti-polio vaccine. 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. 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. 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. However, Eisenhower kept many of
the New Deal programs, since
some, like Social Security and unemployment insurance,
simply had to stay. 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. 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. Still,
critics said that he was economically timid, blaming the president for the
sharp economic downturn of 1957-58. Also, the AF of L merged with the CIO
to end 20 years of bitter division in labor unions.
VIII.
A “New Look” in Foreign Policy
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. 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.” 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.
IX.
The Vietnam Nightmare
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. 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. Ho Chi Minh
was supposed to allow free elections, but soon, Vietnam became clearly split
between a Communist north and a pro-Western south. Secretary Dulles created the
Southeast Asian Treaty Organization
to emulate NATO, but this
provided little help.
X.
Cold War Crisis in Europe and the Middle East
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. However, in 1956, when the Hungarians revolted against the
USSR, the Soviets crushed them with brutality and massive bloodshed. The U.S.
did change some of its immigration laws to let 30,000 Hungarians into American
as immigrants. 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. 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. 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. The Suez crisis marked the last
time the U.S. could brandish its “oil weapon.” In 1960, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Iraq, Iran, and Venezuela joined to form the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC.
XI.
Round Two for Ike
In 1956, Eisenhower again ran against Stevenson and
won easily by a landslide. 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. However, the Democrats did win the House and
Senate. 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.
A drastic labor-reform bill in 1959 grew from recurrent strikes in critical
industries. 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. Hoffa was later
jailed for jury tampering and then disappeared in prison, allegedly murdered by
some gangsters that he had crossed. The 1959 Landrum-Griffin Acct was designed to bring labor leaders to book
for financial shenanigans and prevent bullying tactics. Anti-laborites forced
into the bill bans against “secondary boycotts” and certain types of picketing.
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. Plus, the Soviets might fire missiles at the U.S. from
space. Critics charged that Truman had not spent enough money on missile
programs while America had used its science for other things, like television. 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. The 1958 National Defense and Education Act (NDEA) gave $887 million in
loads to needy college students and grants for the improvement of schools.
XII.
The Continuing Cold War
Humanity-minded scientists called for an end to
atmospheric nuclear testing, lest future generations be deformed and mutated. Beginning
October 1958, Washington did halt “dirty” testing, as did the USSR, but
attempts to regularize such suspensions were unsuccessful. 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. 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. 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.
XIII.
Cuba’s Castroism Spells Communism
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. 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. In 1961 America broke diplomatic
relations with Cuba. 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. 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.
XIV.
Kennedy Challenges Nixon for the Presidency
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. 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. 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
XV.
An Old General Fades Away
Eisenhower had his critics, but he was appreciated
more and more for ending one war and keeping the U.S. out of others. 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. In 1959, Alaska and
Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states to join the Union.
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.
XVI.
The Life of the Mind in Postwar America
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. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22
and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s Slaughterhouse-Five crackled with
fantastic and psychedelic prose, satiring the suffering of the war. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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). The South had literary artists like William Faulkner, Walker Percy, and Eudora Welty. Jewish authors also had
famous books, such as J.D. Salinger’s
Catcher in the Rye.
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