Chapter 37 The Eisenhower Era

1. Chapter 37 The Eisenhower Era

2. Theme: The Eisenhower years were characterized by prosperity and moderate conservatism at home and by the tensions of the Cold War abroad. • Theme: The 1950’s witnessed a huge expansion of the middle class and the blossoming of a consumer culture. Crucial to the development of a new lifestyle of leisure and affluence was the rise of the new technology of television. • Theme: While Dwight Eisenhower and the majority of Americans held to a cautious, family-oriented perspective on domestic social questions, an emerging civil rights movement and the influence of television and popular music presented challenges to the spirit of national “consensus.”

3. chapter summary • Using the new medium of television to enhance his great popularity, grandfatherly “Ike” was ideally suited to soothe an America badly shaken by the Cold War and Korea. Eisenhower was slow to go after Joseph McCarthy, but the demagogue’s bubble finally burst. Eisenhower also reacted cautiously to the beginnings of the civil rights movement but sent troops to Little Rock to enforce court orders. While his domestic policies were moderately conservative, they left most of the New Deal in place.

4. Despite John Dulles’s tough talk, Eisenhower’s foreign policies were also generally cautious. He avoided military involvement in Vietnam, although aiding Diem, and pressured Britain, France, and Israel to resolve the Suez crisis. • He also refused to intervene in the Hungarian revolt and sought negotiations to thaw the frigid Cold War. Dealing with Nikita Khrushchev proved difficult, as Sputnik, the Berlin Crisis, the U-2 incident, and Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution all kept Cold War tensions high. In a tight election, Senator John Kennedy defeated Eisenhower’s vice president, Richard Nixon, by calling for the country to “get moving again” by more vigorously countering the Soviets.

5. American society grew ever more prosperous in the Eisenhower era, as science, technology, and the Cold War fueled burgeoning new industries like electronics and aviation. Women joined the movement into the increasingly white-collar workforce, and chafed at widespread restrictions they faced. • A new consumer culture, centered around television, fostered a new ethic of leisure and enjoyment, including more open expressions of sexuality in popular entertainment. Intellectuals and artists criticized the focus on private affluence rather than the public good. Jewish, African American, and southern writers had a striking new impact on American culture.

6. In President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man and the hour met. • Americans yearned for a period of calm in which they could pursue without distraction their new visions of consumerist affluence. • The nation sorely needed a respite from twenty years of depression and war. • Yet the American people unexpectedly found themselves in the early 1950s dug into the frontlines of the Cold War abroad and dangerously divided at home over the explosive issues of communist subversion and civil rights. • They longed for reassuring leadership, and “Ike” seemed ready both to reassure and to lead.

7. Affluence and Its Anxieties • The economy really sprouted during the 50s, driven by science and technology. • The invention of the transistor massively expanded the electronics field, especially in computers (circa 1950 to the right), helping such companies as International Business Machines (IBM) expand and prosper. • Aerospace industries progressed, as the Boeing company made the first passenger-jet airplane (adapted from the superbombers of the Strategic Air Command), the 707.

8. In 1956, “white-collar” workers outnumbered “blue collar” workers for the first time, meaning that the industrial era was passing on. • As this occurred, labor unions peaked in 1954 then started a steady decline. • Women appeared more and more in the workplace, despite the stereotypical role of women as housewives that was being portrayed on TV shows such as “Ozzie and Harriet” and “Leave It to Beaver.” • More than 40 million new jobs were created. • Job opportunities were also opening to women in the white collar work force. • Women’s expansion into the workplace shocked some, but really wasn’t surprising if one observed the recent trends in history, particularly during the world wars. Now, women were both housewives and workers. • Betty Friedan’s 1963 book The Feminine Mystique was a best-seller and a classic of modern feminine protest literature. She’s the godmother of the feminist movement.

9. Consumer Culture in the Fifties • The fifties saw the first Diner’s Club cards, the opening of McDonald’s, the debut of Disneyland, and an explosion in the number of television stations in the country. • Advertisers used television to sell products while “televangelists” like Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, and Fulton J. Sheen used TV to preach the gospel and encourage religion. • Sports shifted west, as the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants moved to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively, in 1958.

10. Elvis Presley, a white singer of the new “rock and roll” who made girls swoon with his pouting lips and sexually suggestive gyrations, that redefined popular music. • Traditionalists were shocked by Elvis’s shockingly open sexuality, and other sex symbols, most notably Marilyn Monroe , continued to redefine a new overtly sensuous sexuality.

11. Critics, such as David Riesman in The Lonely Crowd, William H. Whyte, Jr. in The Organization Man, and Sloan Wilson in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, lamented the new consumerist , and conformist style. Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith questioned the relation between private wealth and public good in The Affluent Society.

12. The Advent of Eisenhower • In 1952, the Democrats chose Adlai E. Stevenson, the witty governor of Illinois, while Republicans rejected isolationist Robert A. Taft and instead chose World War II hero Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president and anticommunist Richard M. Nixon to be his running mate. • Grandfatherly Eisenhower was a war hero and liked by seemingly everyone. Undoubtedly, “Ike’s” greatest asset was his enjoyment of the affection and respect of the American people. • He left the rough part of campaigning to Nixon, who attacked Stevenson as soft against communists, and corrupt, and weak in dealing with the Korean situation.

13. Nixon then almost got caught with a secretly financed “slush fund,” so to save his political career, he delivered his famous “Checkers Speech.” In it, he denied wrongdoing and spoke of his family and specifically, his daughter’s cute little cocker spaniel, Checkers. He was forgiven in the public arena and stayed on as V.P. • The “Checkers speech” showed the awesome power of television, and how it could be used to distract people from the real issues.

14. Later, Eisenhower’s handlers convinced him to go into studio and answer some brief “questions,” which were later spliced in and edited to make it look like Eisenhower had answered questions from a live audience, when in fact he hadn’t. • This showed the power that TV would have in the upcoming decades, allowing lone wolves to appeal directly to the American people instead of being influenced by party machines or leaders. If you were good in front of the camera, you could potentially come out of nowhere and become a real political threat. • Politicians have been judged ever since then on how well they can handle the media limelight.

15. Ike won easily (442 to 89), and true to his campaign promise, he personally flew to Korea to help move along peace negotiations. • After meeting initial resistance, seven months later, after Ike threatened to use nuclear weapons, an armistice was finally signed. • In Korea, 54,000 Americans had died, and tens of billions of dollars had been spent in the effort. And though the original objective of the military operation had been achieved, many Americans took little comfort in knowing that communism had been “contained” at such a heavy price.

16. Eisenhower had been an excellent military commander and leader who seemingly was able to make cooperation possible between most anyone. Thus, he seemed to be a perfect leader for Americans weary of two decades of depression, war, and nuclear standoff. • He did indeed serve that aspect of his job well, though critics say he could have used his popularity to champion civil rights more than he actually did.