The Eisenhower years

1. The Eisenhower years By Bobbi Kroll Eastbrook High School

2. “Ike” Eisenhowerelected in 1952 and 1956

3. “Ike” Eisenhowerpopular 2-term Republican

4. “Ike” EisenhowerRichard Nixon, VP

5. In the 1950s, women were voting in equal numbers with men for the first time. To appeal to female voters, candidates' wives became visible in political campaigns.

6. Female voters could identify with women such as Mamie Eisenhower and Pat Nixon who projected the traditional image of supportive spouse.

7. Pat The Republican Partyfocused on family values to counter communist threat and to return the country to postwar "normalcy."


8. Family Men As campaigners, Mamie Eisenhower and Pat Nixon were perfect for their role. They were active in their husband's campaigns but were perceived as family women, not as political women seeking power for themselves.

9. For the 1950s presidential campaigns, this was effective because Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson was divorced.

10. Mamie During the 1952 presidential campaign, Dwight Eisenhower's wife Mamie was by his side. Campaign songs were written about her; buttons proclaimed “I Like Ike, but I Love Mamie” She watched soap operas, played board games, and reportedly encouraged White House cooks to use boxed cake mixes and Jell-O. She was a fan of the “I Love Lucy” show. As First Lady, Mamie was proud of her role as a traditional housewife, and was famously quoted as saying, “Ike runs the country; I turn the pork chops”.

11. Pat Nixon was the first internationally-known “2nd lady” Nixons at Disneyland with Walt Disney Mrs. Nina Khrushchev

12. Eisenhower: foreign affairs Eisenhower wanted to “roll back” Communist advances In 1953, he devised a new foreign policy to contain the Soviet Union and win back lost territory. Brainchild of John Foster Dulles(Sec of State), the New Look(NSC-162/2) at foreign policy proposed the use of nuclear weapons and new technology rather than ground troops and conventional bombs It was an effort to threaten “massive retaliation”(or, brinkmanship) vs. Soviet aggression

13. Eisenhower: foreign affairs In addition to intimidating the Soviet Union, this emphasis on new and cheaper weapons would also drastically reduce military spending, which had escalated rapidly during the Truman years. As a result, Eisenhower managed to stabilize defense spending, keeping it at roughly half the congressional budget during most of his 8 years in office.

14. Eisenhower: foreign affairs The doctrine of massive retaliation was dangerously flawed Eisenhower had no options to combat Soviet aggression other than nuclear war. This dilemma surfaced in the 1956 Hungariandemocratic uprising which Soviets brutally crushed “Let’s go wash our hands in the canal…”

15. Eisenhower: foreign affairs Despite Hungary’s request for US military help, Ike’s hands were tied because he knew the USSR would stop at nothing to maintain control of Eastern Europe. He could not risk turning the Cold War into a nuclear war over the interests of a small nation like Hungary. Hungarian freedom fighters Russian tanks in Budapest

16. Eisenhower: foreign affairs Covert Operations As an alternative to brinkmanship, Eisenhower used the CIA to tackle Communism in developing countries Newly appointed CIA director Allen Dullestook enormous liberties in conducting a variety of covert operations.

17. Eisenhower: foreign affairs Covert Operations Thousands of CIA operatives were assigned to Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East to… launch coups, assassinate heads of state, arm anti-Communist revolutionaries, spread propaganda, support despotic pro-American regimes.

18. Eisenhower: foreign affairs Covert Operations Eisenhower began to favor using the CIA instead of the military because covert operations didn’t attract as much attention and cost much less money.

19. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran A CIA-sponsored coup in Iran in 1953 attracted attention and heavy criticism both at home and abroad. Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers authorized the coup when the Iranian government seized control of the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

20. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran Afraid that the popular, nationalist, Soviet-friendly prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, would then cut off oil exports to the United States, CIA operatives convinced Iranian military leaders to overthrow Mossadegh and restore Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi as head of state in 1953.

21. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran 1954 CIA-backed coup in Guatemala Pahlavi returned control of Anglo-Iranian Oil to the British and signed agreements to supply the US with almost half of all oil drilled in Iran. The following year, a similar coup in Guatemala over agricultural land rights also drew international criticism and severely damaged US–Latin American relations.

22. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1954 Dien Bien Phu When the key French garrison at Dien Bien Phu fell to (Communist leader) Ho Chi Minh’s troops in 1954, Eisenhower promised to assist the French economically. Many U.S. foreign policy thinkers feared that if one Southeast Asian country fell to Communism, all the others would fall as well, just like a row of dominoes. This so-called domino theory prompted Secretary of State Dulles and Vice President Nixon to advocate the use of nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese.

23. Eisenhower: foreign affairs

24. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1954 Dien Bien Phu Remembering the fruitless war in Korea, Eisenhower responded, “I can conceive of no greater tragedy than for the United States to become engaged in all-out war in Indochina.” Nevertheless, Eisenhower’s financial commitment to contain Communism in Vietnam after the fall of Dien Bien Phulaid the groundwork for what eventually devolved into the Vietnam War.

25. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1954 Geneva Conference (Vietnam-17th parallel split) An international convention in Geneva, Switzerland, tried to avert further conflict in Vietnam by temporarily splitting the country into two countries at the 17th parallel. Ho Chi Minh established his government in Hanoi, North Vietnam American-supported Ngo Dinh Diem founded a South Vietnamese government in Saigon.

26. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1954 Geneva Conference (Vietnam-17th parallel split) This Geneva Conference agreement stipulated that the division would be only temporary, a stopgap to maintain peace until national elections could be held to reunite the country democratically.

27. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1954 SEATO Although the USSR consented to the Geneva agreement, Eisenhower rejected it. Instead, he pledged continued economic support to Ngo Dinh Diem and convinced Great Britain, France, Australia, and other regional nations to join the mostly symbolic Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), modeled after the highly successful NATO.

28. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1954 SEATO Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, US

29. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1956 Suez Crisis Eisenhower actually supported the Communist-leaning Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser during the 1956 Suez crisis.

30. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1956 Suez Crisis Hoping to construct a new dam on the Nile River to provide electricity and additional land for farming, the Nationalist Nasser approached British and American officials with requests for economic assistance.

31. Eisenhower: foreign affairs Aswan Dam Left: location X Below: as seen from space X

32. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1956 Suez Crisis When the negotiations collapsed, Nasser turned to the Soviet Union for help and then seized the British-controlled Suez Canal. Great Britain and France asked Eisenhower for military assistance to retake the canal, but Eisenhower refused.

33. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1956 Suez Crisis Eisenhower condemned the attack on Egypt and exerted heavy diplomatic and economic (withholding of oil supply) pressure on the aggressors. Unable to sustain the action in the face of U.S. disapproval and financial pressures, Great Britain and France withdrew.

34. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1956 Suez Crisis

35. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine In order to protect American oil interests in the Middle East, the Eisenhower Doctrinewas announced: …the US would provide military and economic assistance to Middle Eastern countries in resisting Communist insurgents.

36. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine Although not terribly significant, this doctrine, as well as the restoration of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi in Iran, demonstrated the growing importance of oil in American foreign policy decision making.

37. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1957 USSR launches Sputnik October 4, 1957: The Soviet Union launches the first man-made satellite into orbit. Americans panic, terrified that Sputnik will drop a virus  that would cause them to “catch the Communism.”

38. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1957 USSR launches Sputnik

39. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1957 USSR launches Sputnik On October 4, 1957 Soviet scientists shocked the world when they announced they had successfully launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik I , into orbit.

40. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1957 USSR launches Sputnik They followed this up a few months later with Sputnik II Although the satellites themselves posed no danger, Americans feared that the Soviet Union could now attack New York or Washington with nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, (ICBM)from anywhere on the planet. In reality, the Soviet program lagged behind the US

41. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1957 USSR launches Sputnik Fearthat the USSR would win the “space race” before the US launched its first satellite spurred Eisenhower and Congress into action.

42. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1957 USSR launches Sputnik Eisenhower created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 to spearhead the American space program.

43. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1957 USSR launches Sputnik Congress increased defense spending and passed the National Defense Education Act in 1958 to fund more science and foreign language classes in public schools.

44. Eisenhower: foreign affairs Khrushchev and Camp David For a brief period during Eisenhower’s final years in office, it seemed that the United States and the USSR might resolve their differences peacefully and perhaps even end the Cold War.

45. Eisenhower: foreign affairs Khrushchev and Camp David Upon Stalin’s death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev, became premier in 1956. Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s brutal treatment of the Russian people and halted nuclear testing in order to divert money to the struggling Soviet economy.

46. Eisenhower: foreign affairs Khrushchev and Camp David US/Soviet relations improved dramatically after Khrushchev spent 2 weeks touring the US in 1959. He and Eisenhower had a cordial meeting at the presidential retreat at Camp David, MD Many hoped that the spirit of Camp David would ease tensions

47. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1960 U-2 incident Khrushchev invited Eisenhower to visit the Soviet Union and hold a multilateral summit in Paris the following year. The plans fell apart, however, after the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 spy plane in 1960.

48. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1960 U-2 incident Eisenhower and the U.S. government initially denied the existence of U-2 missions over the Soviet Union, but then the USSR produced the American pilot (Gary Powers), whom they had captured alive.

49. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1960 U-2 incident Embarrassed, Eisenhower refused to apologize or promise to suspend future spy missions against the USSR. The U-2 incident instantly repolarized the Cold War, reversing the thaw that Khrushchev’s visit had brought and forcing the abandonment of the Paris summit.

50. Eisenhower: foreign affairs 1961 Eisenhower’s Farewell Address Facing a two-term limit, Eisenhower delivered his farewell address in January 1961. Ironically, he used his last speech as president to address a problem that he himself had had a hand in creating—the increasing dependence on nuclear weapons as a tool of foreign policy.