Ike ends Korean War?
• Adopted a get-tough policy toward the communists in Korea
• He would use any force necessary (including the use of nuclear weapons) to bring the
war to an end unless peace negotiations began to move forward
• Suggested that he would "unleash" the Nationalist Chinese forces on Taiwan against
communist China
Stalin is Dead
• Brought what appeared to be significant changes in Soviet international policy
• Stalin’s successors began calling for negotiations to settle East-West differences
and to rein in the arms race
• Nikita Khrushchev established himself as the main leader in the Kremlin in 1955
• “peaceful coexistence”
War is over… again.
• The Chinese, exhausted by more than two years of war, finally agreed to terms and an
armistice was signed on July 27, 1953.
Forgotten war
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The United States suffered over 50,000 casualties in this "forgotten war”
Nearly $70 billion was spent
Ike goes forward
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Strengthen established programs
• Social Security
Launch important new ones
• Interstate Highway System in 1956
Foreign policy
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IKE Used the CIA
• secret interventions to overthrow unfriendly governments or protect reliable antiCommunist leaders whose power was threatened
• Iran
• Guatemala
• Indonesia
French Indo China is back!
France attempted to reassert itself in the region
But the Viet Minh were a problem
• an organization of Communist Vietnamese nationalists
• Ho Chi Minh
During WW2, we had supported the Viet Minh in resistance against the Japanese
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We are Vietnam!
Ho — as president — declared independence for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Before the end of September, a force of British, French and Indians, restored French
control.
Bitter fighting ensued
Surrounded the French at Dien Bien Phu
Sink or Swim with President Diem
Geneva Conference
• Elections in 1956
• N-Ho Chi Minh
• S-Diem
• French argued against that Diem was "not only incapable but mad"
CIA-No elections
Election of 1956
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R-Ike
• 2 heart attacks
D-Stevenson
You need a rest!
Domestic affairs-Sherman Adams, Chief of Staff
Foreign policy-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles
• Increased military budget
• “New Look”
• Special emphasis on bigger and better planes
Civil Rights
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Brown vs. Topeka
• racially segregated schools were unconstitutional
Ike never endorsed the Supreme Court’s ruling in 1954 that racially segregated schools
were unconstitutional
Did not have any timetable in connection with this decision
Civil Rights
Rosa Parks
Refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger
Boycott of municipal bus lines in Montgomery, Alabama
• MLK, Jr.
• New preacher in town
• Led the boycott for 13 months
New leader is born!
• December 5, 1955-December 20, 1956
Browder v. Gayle
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Nov. 13, 1956
With no dissent, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Montgomery federal court’s
Browder v. Gayle decision striking down Alabama’s bus segregation laws.
Bus 2857
Henry Ford Museum
Little Rock
Labor
• AFL-CIO
• Combination of the two groups
• Under Bill Meany
• Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities-Racket Committee
• Driving force-Robert Kennedy
• into corruption in the trade union
• "The union had been 'mobbed up,' quietly infiltrated by gangsters who saw the
Teamsters' $250 million pension fund as a honey pot"
• Jimmy Hoffa
Sputnik -Beep, Beep, Beep...
• First artificial satellite
• Size of a basketball
• Weighed only 183 pounds
• Took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth
America’s reaction
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NASA created
School curriculums with an emphasis on science and mathematics were quickly
established to prepare students for the challenges ahead
• Senator Lyndon Johnson
• "Soon, they will be dropping bombs on us from space like kids dropping rocks onto
cars from freeway overpasses.”
National Defense Education Act
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Provide hundreds of millions of dollars in student loans, scholarships, fellowships, and
the purchase of scientific equipment for schools
Support was expanded for the National Science Foundation
Advanced Research Projects Agency was created.
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Let’s talk peace?
Russia had initiated the Warsaw Pact
• NATO of the Eastern European countries with Russia
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Khrushchev came to America
Nixon goes to Russia
• July 1959 to open a U.S. exhibition in Moscow
• Escorted Khrushchev through a model U.S. kitchen
“Kitchen Debates”
• In front of the television cameras, Khrushchev then found himself in a debate with
Nixon over the relative merits of the United States and Communist systems.
• Later broadcast on television in both the USSR and the United States
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Peace talks in June, 1960?
U.S. had flown numerous 'successful' spy missions over and around the U.S.S.R
On May 1, 1960, a U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers was brought down
near Svedlovsk
“the airplane was on a joint NASA - U.S. Air Force air weather service mission in
Turkey”
What a mess!
Disrupted the peace process already in progress between Eisenhower and Khrushchev
Khrushchev openly questioned the intent of the United States in the peace process
Called it off
Powers was sentenced to ten years in prison, but was released in 1962 in exchange for
convicted Soviet spy Rudolph Abel.
Egypt
READ
• Nasser and the Suez Canal
• Eisenhower Doctrine
• US will send military aid and if necessary troops to help counter communist thrust
into the Middle East
Cuba
• New leader- Fidel Castro
• United States was quick to recognize the new government.
• Castro came to the White House
• Ike did not see him because he was playing golf.
Vice President Nixon
• Anticipated an uneventful tour of South America
• Unprepared for the vehemence of the anti-American demonstrations
South America Reacts
• Peru
• Blocked from visiting San Marcos University by a crowd of demonstrators
chanting "Go Home Nixon!“
• Venezuela
• spat at him as he left his plane.
• Caracas-mob surrounded his car and began rocking it back and forth, trying to turn
it over and chanting "Death to Nixon."
Who hates US the Most?
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Vietnam
Russia
Latin America
Africa
Our Allies
Election of 1960
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R-Richard Nixon
D-John Kennedy
• New to politics
• Senator
• Wealthy
• CATHOLIC
Televised Debates
• First in American History
• Combination of what you were saying and HOW you looked on TV
• In their first debate Kennedy came off the winner on TV (not to those who heard in on
the radio)
VERY CLOSE RACE
AMERICA in the 50’s
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Population: 151,684,000
Life expectancy: women 71.1, men 65.6
Average salary: $2,992
Labor force male/female: 5/2
Cost of a loaf of bread: $0.14
Bomb shelter plans, like the government pamphlet You Can Survive, become widely
available
Notes on Prices
• Coke in 1956
• 10 and 15 cents
• Gallon of gas 1956
• 23 cents per gal
• Movie 1956
• about 50 cents
• The drive- in movie
• carload 1 dollar
• Glass of milk
• about 15 cents
• Hamburger
• 15-18 cents and 6 for a dollar
• Fries
• 10 and 20 cents
• 1955-McDonald's menu:
• hamburger 15, fries 10, coke 10 and 15, coffee 10
• To different areas of USA
• South and West
• To the suburbs
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A time for moving!
18 million to be exact!
• People could afford single family dwellings
• Sense of family
• Community
• Race
• Inner city
• Puerto Ricans and Blacks
SUBURBS
• DEPENDED ON THE CAR!!!!
A time for “citification”
• Rural America
• Paved roads
• Electricity
• Agricultural colleges expanded their curriculum and changed their name
A time for growth
• We are booming!
• 150,000,000
• Babies
• Immigrants
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Hawaii and Alaska
• Strategic location
• Cold War
A time for prosperity
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Based on
• consumer demand
We wanted everything new!!!!!
Based on
• heavy defense spending
• $40 billion
Was not shared by the farmer or older industries
A time for science and medicine
Jonas Salk-Polio vaccine
Erythromycin
ENIAC
A time for fads
Blue jeans
Poodle skirts
Flat top hair
Pony tails
Silly Putty
Hoola hoops
Coon skin caps
A time for leisure
Because of automation in industry and labor-saving devices at home
So we…
Went to school
• More money
• GI Bill
Family vacations
Sports
Television
A time for family vacations
Travel
• Car Culture
• Trailer Parks
A time for sports
• Baseball
• Yogi Berra,1B Stan Musial,
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2B Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Duke Snider, Frank Robinson,
Henry Aaron
Basketball
• Bob Cousy
Golf
• Arnold Palmer
A time for television
Ideal family, the ideal schools and neighborhoods
White, middle class, suburban
Sitcoms
• The Honeymooners
• I Love Lucy
• Ozzie and Harriet
• Father Knows Best
Historical shows
• “You are There”
A time for conservatives
Addition of the phrase “under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance
Clothing
Gender roles were strongly held
Families worked together, played together and vacationed together
A time for weirdoes
Beats or Beatniks
• Western or Eastern coast
• Centered in the West Village, the Lower East Side
• Against the conformists
• Painters, writers, musicians and curious spectators colonized the ethnic restaurants,
coffee shops, saloons and cheap "cold water" tenements.
A time for MUSIC!
• Rock and Roll
• Bill Haley
• Jerry Lee Lewis
• Buddy Holly
A time for Elvis
• The Ed Sullivan Show- Sullivan instructed the camera operators to shoot the picture
from the waist up only.
• The Steve Allen Show- Presley appeared in a tuxedo and serenaded a basset hound
with his hit "You Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog."
A time to read
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Dr Benjamin Spock
Baby and Child Care
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Michael Harrington
The Other America
1/5 of Americans live below the poverty line