Who started the Cold War?
Explain the point of view of the cartoon
Chapter 37:
The Eisenhower Era
Every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies…a theft from those who are cold
and are not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953
“We Like Ike!”
• Modern Republicanism: “In all those things which
deal with people, be liberal, be human…(but with
the) people’s money, or their economy or their form
of government, be conservative.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Supreme Allied Commander (WWII)
• Head of NATO after the war
• Chooses Richard Nixon as his
vice-president
• Although a Republican (the 1st
since 1932), he expanded
Social Security and ensured
New Deal programs would
survive regardless
of who was in the White House
• He kept his campaign promise and went to Korea to
restart stalled negotiations to end the war
Richard Nixon
• Famous Communist
hunter with the
House Un-American
Activities Committee
(HUAC)
• Saved himself as a
vice-presidential
candidate with his
“Checkers Speech”
Family Roles
• Dr. Spock’s Book of Baby and
Child Care
– The leading child care expert
(then and now)
• The Woman’s Guide to Better
Living 52 Weeks a Year
– “The family is the center of
your living. If it isn’t, you’ve
gone astray”
• Traditional family roles
(remember the “cult of
domesticity” of the 19th
Century?) were reinforced
by the media in the 20th Century
• Not ALL women were
pleased about how
their roles were being
traditionally defined
• Some denounced the
“pink-collar ghetto” of
feminine occupations
• Others, like Betty Friedan
gave focus and fuel to
the growing women’s
movement soon to be
known as “feminism” in the
Sixties
The problem lay buried, unspoken, for
many years in the minds of American
women. It was a strange stirring, a sense
of dissatisfaction, a yearning that
women suffered in the middle of the
twentieth century in the United States.
Each suburban wife struggled with it
alone. As she made the beds, shopped
for groceries, matched slipcover
material, ate peanut butter sandwiches
with her children, chauffeured Cub
Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her
husband at night — she was afraid to
ask even of herself the silent question
"Is this all?"
Popular Television of the Fifties
1950: A Date with Your
Family
(what messages are being
reinforced?)
The Culture and the Critics of Suburbia
• By 1960, 1/3 of all Americans lived in suburbia
• The Critics
– A wasteland of conformity
and materialism
– The Organization Man condemned society
for forcing conformity on the masses
– Television and popular entertainment for the
masses were NOT high culture
• It isolated individuals because
they were sharing in a common
experience…but by themselves
(sound familiar?)
The Triumph of the Automobile
• Suburban living required transportation for
commuters and for moms
• Cars became status symbols as Americans were
encouraged to move up to more expensive cars
to show success
• 1956: Interstate Highway Act
– A costly Cold War necessity
• Move troops and weapons
• Evacuate cities
– Made travel faster and safer
– Created economic opportunities (gas stations,
motels, restaurants)
– More choices for Americans to live, work, vacation
Searching for Communists in the
United States (a 2nd Red Scare)
• The House Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC) investigated the full range of radical
groups in the United States including Fascists
and Communists
• Also investigated Hollywood
actors, writers and directors
– Feared the influence of movies
in society
– Blacklists: if you were suspected of
being a Communist or Communist
sympathizer you could not find any
more work in Hollywood
• Federal Employee Loyalty
Program
– Required federal employees to
take loyalty oaths
– Employees investigated & found
to be disloyal to the U.S. were
barred from federal employment.
• The McCarran Act limited the rights of
Communist organizations.
• Several spy cases in the late 1940s
fueled fears of communism.
– Julius and Ethel Rosenberg remain
the only Americans executed in
peacetime for espionage (1953)
The Rise and Fall of Joseph McCarthy
• The Republican senator from Wisconsin rose to fame with
baseless charges about Communists in the State Department
• Finally, in 1954 McCarthy went too far
when he accused both the army and
President Eisenhower of being
“soft on Communism”
• McCarthy was censured (formally
scolded/reprimanded) by the Senate
• He faded from the national scene but his Communist “witch
hunt” caused great damage to individuals
• “McCarthyism”: The practice of publicizing accusations of
political disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to
evidence OR the use of unfair investigatory or accusatory
methods in order to suppress opposition
• McCarthy’s witch hunt
damaged the morale and
effectiveness of those in foreign service
• Many Asian experts were purged that could have provided
valuable advice and expertise about Vietnam later
• The American reputation of being a fair and open
democracy was severely damaged
• Sec. of State John Foster Dulles helped shape
Eisenhower’s “New Look” Cold War policies.
• Dulles did not want to merely contain
communism; he wanted to roll it back (considered
a “new look”).
– Believed in brinkmanship, the diplomatic art of going
to the brink of war without actually getting into war.
– Believed in the concept of massive retaliation (use
overwhelming force against the USSR …
M.A.D. = Mutually Assured Destruction)
– Built up the Strategic Air Command (SAC) with a fleet
of superbombers armed with nuclear missiles
• Later, Eisenhower will warn the US about the
power of “the military-industrial complex” he
helped create
The Spirit of Camp David
• A USSR – USA summit meeting in Geneva,
Switzerland (the “Spirit of Geneva”…1955) was
followed by a meeting in
1959 at Camp David
(the “Spirit of Camp David”)
– No decisions were made
but a spirit of goodwill
and peace prevailed
– Ike said, “It looks like we can
talk to each other without
being mutually abusive”
• The Cold War sometimes
“heats” up and sometimes “cools” down
Which Nikita Khrushchev?
In November 1956, during a diplomatic
reception... Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev told Western diplomats:
"About the capitalist states, it doesn't
depend on you whether we (Soviet Union)
exist. If you don't like us, don't accept our
invitations, and don't invite us to come to
see you. Whether you like it our not,
history is on our side. We will bury you."'
Covert (Secret) Action
• Gathering information through satellites, spies
and wiretapping
• Francis Gary Powers flying a U-2 high altitude
spy plane was shot down embarrassing the
U.S. and increasing Soviet distrust (page 963)
– The “Spirit of Camp David” ends with this U-2
incident
• The C.I.A. was often used to overthrow or
support the overthrow of “unfriendly”
governments that we needed on our side
– Especially in the Middle East (oil) and Central and
South America (location)
The Deadly Arms Race
• 1952: the United States develops the H-Bomb
(500x more powerful than the bombs dropped
during the war)
• Submarines were equipped with nuclear missiles
– I.C.B.M.s (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles)
• Red (mainland) China attacks Nationalist
(Taiwan) China
– The U.S. threatens a nuclear attack unless the
Communist government backs off and ends the
attacks
– They do (…but what if they didn’t??)
Scientific Progress? Not in the U.S.A.
• While American teenagers are
dancing at sock hops, listening to
Elvis and watching television (a
“vast wasteland”-Newton Minow
chairman of the FCC), the Soviets
launch Sputnik in 1957
• 1958: National Defense Education
Act (significant federal expansion)
along with N.A.S.A.
Into the Vietnam Nightmare
• Ho Chi Minh
– Inspired by Woodrow Wilson and ideas
of self-determination for the French
colony of Vietnam
– Anti colonial leaders were increasingly
moving toward Communism
• The French government stubbornly tried to hold
their colony until they lose at Dien Bien Phu (1954)
• The Geneva Accords in 1955 divide Vietnam
– Elections were to be held but never occurred when it
became obvious Communists would win
• The U.S. supports Ngo Dinh Diem in the south
World War III in Egypt?
• In 1956, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser
nationalizes the British controlled Suez Canal
– Nationalization is when a country takes control of a
resource in that country formerly controlled by a different
country
– He wanted to build the Aswan Dam on the Nile River
• Britain and France meet
with Israel and plan the
attack thinking they
would receive U.S.
support
• The U.S.S.R. threatens to
back the Egyptians with
military force
The Eisenhower Doctrine
• When the Suez Crisis begins, the U.S. actively
seeks the aid of the United Nations to get Great
Britain, France and Israel out of Egypt
• Weakens the power/presence of the French and
British in Africa (hurts American relations with
those nations)
• The Soviets build the dam with the Egyptians
• The Eisenhower Doctrine: The U.S. would aid
any nation in the Middle East trying to resist
communism.
Living with Nuclear Anxiety
Hollywood used aliens as metaphors for whom?
Civil Defense and Preparedness
• Ground Zero
– The impact point of a nuclear bomb
• Federal Civil Defense Administration
distributed manuals and guidelines to help
citizens prepare for a surprise attack
– Emergency sirens, fallout shelters, bomb shelters
• Questions were raised about the
evacuation of large cities and the
survivability of a nuclear war
As we continue to study the Cold War,
have you seen signs/evidence that
supports one idea or the other (below):
Cold War America: Conservatism,
Complacency and Contentment
-orCold War America: Anxiety, Alienation
and Agitation
The “Duck and Cover” Generation
A Nation Divided
• Blacks lived under a
different set of rules than whites, primarily in the
South, but throughout the United States
• 1896: The Supreme Court
ruled in Plessy vs. Ferguson
that segregation could exist
as long as accommodations
were “separate but equal”
• Jim Crow Laws established
separate facilities for blacks
and whites throughout the South
The Courts Dismantle Segregation
• Jim Crow laws allowed segregation and the Courts
began to rule them unconstitutional
• None bigger than Brown v. Board of Education
– Linda Brown had to walk a mile to her school in Topeka,
Kansas when a white school was only 7 blocks away
– Local courts found no “willful discrimination”
• NAACP (Thurgood Marshall)
appeals to the Supreme Court
• Segregation harmed black
children by reinforcing negative
stereotypes
• “’Separate but equal’ has no place”
– It deprives minority children the right to equal
educational opportunities
• Earl Warren (Chief Justice)
– The Warren Court becomes known for its activism on
civil rights and free speech
• The South was supposed to desegregate in the
aftermath of the Court’s ruling…but they resist
• While Eisenhower will enforce the ruling, a
chief criticism was that he refused to use his
immense popularity toward the cause of civil
rights
– He cared more about social harmony than social
justice
• An American Dilemma (1944)
exposed the contradiction in
America between the “American
Creed” (progress, liberty, equality
and humanitarianism) and how
blacks were treated.
• The Other America (1962)
revealed 20% of the American
population and 40% of the
black population suffered in
poverty
The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955)
Little Rock Central High (1957)
Sit-Ins and SNCC
The postwar era witnessed tremendous
economic growth and rising social
contentment and conformity. Yet in the
midst of such increasing affluence and
comfortable domesticity, social critics
expressed a growing sense of unease
with American culture in the 1950s.
Assess the validity of that statement and
explain how the decade of the 1950s laid
the groundwork for the social and
political turbulence of the 1960s.