1950s Cold War and Domestic Politics

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1950s Cold War and Domestic Politics

• Some Truman stuff, mostly Eisenhower

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Election of 1948
Nominee Harry S. Truman Thomas E. Dewey Henry Wallace Strom Thurmond
Party Democrat Republican Progressive Dixiecrat
Votes 303 _at_ 24.2 million 189 _at_ 22 million Not many 39 _at_ 1.8 million
Platform Fair Deal do-nothing campaign Anti big business, HUAC Pro Civil Rights seen as pro-Communist Pro segregation
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Election of 1952
Nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) Adlai Stevenson
Party Republican Democrat
Votes 442 89
Platform attacking "Korea, Communism and Corruption focused attention on voting women Anti-McCarthy
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Election of 1956
Nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) Adlai Stevenson
Party Republican Democrat
Votes 457 73
Platform Pro Brown v. Board of Education, Hungary Suez Crisis Treaties with Soviet Union, lower defense spending, all-volunteer army
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Ike Dynamic Conservatism

• Maintained New Deal programs (Social Security,
  higher minimum wage)
• Interstate Highway System (1954)
• 27 billion to build 42,000 miles of highways
  (copied what Hitler did in Germany)
• Maybe most important federally funded
  infrastructure program in history
• Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
  created in 1953
• AFL CIO merge (1955) but expel the Teamster
  union (Jimmy Hoffa)
• Landrum-Griffin Act (1959) strengthened the
  Taft-Harley Act
• Alaska (1958) and Hawaii (1959) added as states

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More Cold War Stuff
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National Security Act (1947)

• Central Intelligence Agency
• Collects and analyzes information from around the
  world
• National Security Council
• Advises the president daily about security issues
  for the nation
• Department of Defense
• Replaced the Department of War and Department of
  the Navy
• Controls the entire military

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NSC 68

• April 14, 1950
• The blueprint for U.S. foreign policy in the
  Cold War
• Encouraged the build-up of nuclear and
  conventional weapons in response the threat of
  Communism

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John Foster Dulles and Massive Retaliation

• 2 parts to Dulles Plan
• Encourage Eastern European people to overthrow
  their govts (Radio Free Europe)
• Brinkmanship never back down in a crisis, even
  if it means nuclear war (or were tough and well
  kill everyone on earth to prove it)
• Rejects containment, encourages preemptive
  strikes, and encourages nuclear arms race

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New Look Military

• Ike wanted to reduce military budget by focusing
  on nuclear arms instead of traditional military
• Couldnt respond to a small issue (i.e. Hungary)
• Military spending actually increased

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Vietnam during Eisenhowers Terms

• Ho Chi Minh (Communist) leads fight to liberate
  French Indochina after WWII
• Communist defeat the French at the battle of Dien
  Bien Phu (1954)
• U.S. had supported France, but Ike wasnt willing
  to use direct force
• Geneva Convention
• Vietnam divided at the 17th Parallel
• Elections to be held to united the nation in a
  few years (South Vietnams President Ngo Dinh
  Diem never let that happen)

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Vietnam During Eisenhowers Terms (cont.)

• Communist guerrillas begin to fight against
  Diems govt in the South
• Dulles creates the Southeast Asia Treaty
  Organization (SEATO)
• U.S. pledges to prevent communism from spreading
  in Asia
• U.S. sends military advisors to train the South
  Vietnamese army
• Domino Theory
• If one nation falls to communism, all of its
  neighbors will fall too
• U.S. will be involved in Vietnam from 1954 to 1975

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Eisenhower and dealing with the U.S.S.R.

• 1953 Stalin dies
• 1955 Nikita Krushchev takes over
• Promises a peaceful coexistence with
  democracies
• Wanted to beat democracies economically to
  impress nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin
  America
• 1955 Warsaw Pact signed
• 1956 Hungarian uprising
• U.S. unable to help Hungarian people as they were
  killed for protesting for democracy

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1957 Sputnik launched

• 1st ever artificial satellite in orbit
• Americans fear not only being spied on, but
  falling behind the missile gap
• National Defense Education Act (NDEA)
• Emphasis on science, math, and foreign language
• 1/3 of university research focused on weapons
  research
• 1958 U.S. launches Explorer I into orbit
• 1958 National Aeronautics Space Agency (NASA)
  created
• U.S. expands massive nuclear arms and delivery
  system

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Eisenhower and dealing with the U.S.S.R.

• October 1958 U.S. U.S.S.R. agree to stop
  atmospheric nuclear testing
• November 1958 Krushchevs Berlin Ultimatum
• Eisenhower refused to give up West Berlin
• Vice President Richard Nixon and the Kitchen
  Debates (1959)
• May 1, 1960 U2 incident
• Worst U.S. Soviet relations since Stalin
• Resulted in the canceling of a peace conference
  in Paris that year

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Middle East

• Iran
• 1953 CIA lead a coup that results in the Shah
  taking over Iran
• 1979 Iranian Revolution will result in Iran
  getting their revenge
• Suez Crisis
• Egypt (led by Nasser) takes the Suez Canal from
  France and Great Britain
• France, Britain, Israel attack Egypt
• Eisenhower and the Soviets renounced the attack
• Egypt gets the canal
• Eisenhower Doctrine
• U.S. will send financial and military aid to any
  nation threatened by communism

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Cuba

• By 1959, U.S. owns 90 of Cuban mines 40 of
  Cuban sugar operations
• Fidel Castro takes over (1/1/1959)
• U.S. thinks he is a communist, Ike refuses to
  meet him
• Krushchev gives economic aid to Cuba and then
  offers nuclear protection (promises to bomb the
  U.S. if the U.S. ever attacked Cuba)
• Sept, 1960 CIA begins attempts to kill Castro
  (lets higher the mafia!)
• U.S. breaks relations with Cuba in 1961
• Organization of American States (OAS)
• Creates a Latin American Marshall Plan to stop
  communism

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Eisenhowers Farewell Address

• Warned against the military-industrial-complex
• Military establishment and the arms industry
  controlled a great deal of and power
• Even today, the U.S. government spends more on
  the military than everything else on the budget .
  . . Combined!