Eisenhower
1953-1961
Election of 1952
-"I like Ike" was Eisenhower's slogan
- VP running mate = Richard M. Nixon, chosen to satisfy anti communists of Republican Party
-During campaign, reports of Nixon secretly tapping government funds arose
- Eisenhower considered dropping Nixon from the ballot=Nixon went on television and stated his apologies in the "Checkers speech"
- ran against Democrat Adlai Stevenson
-witty and eloquent, Eisenhower-Nixon Ticket won in a landslide
Election of 1956
- Adlai Stevenson Democrat
-During this time of prosperity and peace, no reason for people to not re-elect Eisenhower
-Eisenhower won again
-he failed to win for his party either house of Congress.
The Cold War
-from the mid-1940s until the early 1990s
- more precise duration of time is from1947 to 1991.
-July 1953, after Eisenhower threatened to use nuclear weapons, armistice was signed, ending the Korean War
- In 1954, Strategic Air Command proposed by secretary of state, John Foster Dulles to set aside the army and the navy to build up an air fleet of superbombers equipped with nuclear bombs; would allow President Eisenhower to threaten countries such as the Soviet Union and China with nuclear weapons
- Geneva summit conference in 1955, Eisenhower attempted to make peace with new Soviet Union dictator, Nikita Khrushchev and was rejected
-1955, West Germany admitted into NATO.
-1955 Warsaw Pact imitated by Soviets to counteract NATO
-1956 US did not aid Hungary in its fight against communism
-March and October 1958, Soviet Union and the United States declared a suspension of nuclear testing-
- Eisenhower Doctrine-1957
- July 1958, Lebanon requested aid under the Eisenhower Doctrine as communism threatened to overtake the country.
- 1959, Soviet dictator Khrushchev called for complete disarmament before the U.N. General Assembly
-1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down in Russia, causing feelings of a possibly peaceful resolution to subside.
-1954 that overthrew a leftist government in Guatemala.
- 1959 Fidel Castro led a force that overthrew the America-supported government of Cuba = United States cut off the heavy U.S. imports of Cuban sugar.
-Soviets interested in aiding Cuban cause= August 1960, Congress authorized $500 million to prevent communism from spreading in Latin America.
Joseph McCarthy
- February 1950, Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy accused Secretary of State Dean Acheson of intentionally employing 205 Communist party members. -Despite false accusations, McCarthy gained public support
- Republican victory in election of 1952= McCarthy got more momentum= bolder rhetoric and increase in accusations of communism
- Through his actions of "McCarthyism", caused most damage to American traditions of fair play and free speech.
- 1954, McCarthy pushed limits and attacked the U.S. Army
-condemned by the Senate for "conduct unbecoming a member."
- Eisenhower expresses disapproval of McCarthy March 09, 1954
Eisenhower and desegregation in the South
- December 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama
- Rosa's arrest sparked a yearlong black boycott of the city busses, known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, signifying that blacks would no longer be submissive to degradation
- President Eisenhower ignored the racial issues =Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren confronted civil rights issues for African Americans
- Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954), the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools was unequal and thus unconstitutional; replaced previous ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
-Deep Southern States resisted the ruling; > 100 senators and congressman signed the "Declaration of Constitutional Principles" in 1956 proclaiming that they would not integrate
- September 1957, Orval Faubus, the governor of Arkansas mobilized the National Guard to prevent nine black students from enrolling in Little Rock's Central High School
-Not because he supported integration but confronted with a direct challenge to federal authority, Eisenhower sent troops to escort the children to their classes
-1957, Congress set up a permanent Civil Rights Commission to investigate violations of civil rights and authorized federal injunctions to protect voting rights.
-1957. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) led by MLK to gather black churches on behalf of black rights.
- April 1960, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to promote peaceful protest
Eisenhower's Republicanism policies
-Eisenhower liberal with people but conservative with economy and the government
- goal: to balance federal budget and protect America from socialism
- supported strong state governments that could control oil
In 1954, rounded up one million illegal immigrants Operation Wetback to protect legal immigrant bracero workers
-Eisenhower's plan to terminate the tribes as legal entities and to revert to the assimilationist methods of the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 dropped in 1961 after most tribes refused to be terminated
-Eisenhower could not cancel all of the programs created in the New Deal and Fair Deal, because of the lack of public support
-Eisenhower supported the Interstate Highway Act of 1956, that produced countless jobs and sped the suburbanization of America as 42,000 miles of highways were built
-Eisenhower only managed to balance the budget 3 times while in office
-In 1959, Eisenhower incurred the biggest peacetime deficit in the history of the United States
Beginning of the Vietnam War
- Vietnam leader Ho Chi Minh, became increasingly communist as America became increasingly anticommunist
- In May 1954, a French garrison was trapped in the fortress, Dienbienphu, in northwestern Vietnam
- President Eisenhower decided not to intervene, wary of another war right after Korea
- Dienbienphu fell to the communists and the conference at Geneva stopped Vietnam at the 17th parallel
- The pro-Western government in the south, led by Ngo Dinh Diem, was suppressed at Saigon because Vietnam-wide elections, promised by Ho Chi Minh, were never held
-President Eisenhower promised economic and military aid to the anti communist south
Space Race with Soviets
- November 1957 Soviets launched the Sputnik II, carrying a dog
- The two satellites supported Soviet claims that communism ensured superior industrial production
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) established 1958 in response to Soviet success
-1958, the National Defense and Education Act (NDEA) authorized $887 million in loans to needy college students and in grants for the improvement of teaching sciences and languages to yield educated graduates to compete in space race against Soviets