CHAPTER 27 The Politics and Culture of Abundance 1952–1960

1. CHAPTER 27 The Politics and Culture of Abundance 1952–1960

2. Eisenhower and the Politics of the “Middle Way” • Modern Republicanism • Old Guard conservatives - repeal many New Deal legislation- unilateral approach to foreign policy but Eisenhower - “modern Republicanism”- no change in course set by FDR and Truman. • Distance from anti-Communist fervor but refused to publicly denounce Senator McCarthy. • Believed government best when left to states and economic decisions to private business but welfare state grew as did federal government projects - expanding Social Security, continuing federal government’s modest role in financing public housing. • Greatest domestic initiative - Interstate Highway and Defense System Act of 1956. • Resisted federal role in health care, education, and civil rights.

3. Termination and Relocation of Native Americans • New direction in Indian policy - reverse emphasis on strengthening tribal governments and preserve Indian culture established by Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 - three-part program of compensation, termination, and relocation. • Commission to settle Native Americans claims for lands taken by government - 1978 settled 285 cases - $800 million. • Bills to transfer jurisdiction over tribal lands in several states to state and local governments - loss of federal hospitals, schools, and other special arrangements devastated Indian tribes. • Encouraged Indians to move to cities - one-way bus tickets, relocation centers, housing, job training, and medical care. • One-third Indians relocated eventually went back to reservation - those who stayed faced great difficulties - racism, lack of adequately paying jobs for skills possessed, poor housing (Indian ghettos), and loss of traditional culture. • Few overcame these obstacles and applauded the program but most urban Indians remained in or near poverty.

4. The 1956 Election and the Second Term • Nation at peace and economy booming - Eisenhower wins. • Democrats won significant gains in midterm election of 1958 - Eisenhower serious leadership challenges in second term - recession. • First Republican administration after New Deal - size and functions of federal government intact and tipped policy more in favor of corporate interests. Liberation Rhetoric and the Practice of Containment • The “New Look” in Foreign Policy • To balance federal budget and cutting taxes Eisenhower determined to control military expenditures. • U. S. military strength in nuclear weapons with planes and missiles to deliver them - instead of spending huge amounts for large ground forces gave friendly nations American weapons.

5. Nuclear weapons could not stop Soviet nuclear attack, but could inflict enormous destruction on the USSR - nuclear standoff or mutual assured destruction, or MAD. • Nuclear weapons were useless in rolling back the iron curtain – U. S. did not offer support when Hungarian freedom fighters revolted against Soviet-controlled government. • Applying Containment to Vietnam • In 1945 Vietminh, nationalist coalition led by Ho Chi Minh, proclaimed Vietnam’s independence from France - Communism in Vietnam viewed in the context of the “domino theory.” • U. S. contributed 75 percent of France’s war – no larger role. • Vietminh defeated French at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 - two months later France signed truce - temporarily divided Vietnam at seventeenth parallel - Vietminh in the north and French puppet government in the south. • U. S. joined Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) to defend Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam. • Between 1955 and 1961, U. S. provided $800 million to the South Vietnamese army.

6. Army of the Republic of Vietnam grossly unprepared for guerrilla warfare that began in late 1950s. • The situation and commitment to defend South Vietnam against communism passed on to successor. • Interventions in Latin America and the Middle East • Foreign policy work of the CIA - topple unfriendly governments in Latin America and the Middle East • Clandestine activities in Guatemala - government not Communist or Soviet but accepted support from local Communist Party. • Jacobo Arbenz sought to nationalize land owned but not used by United Fruit Company - Eisenhower authorized CIA to conduct covert operations to destabilize Guatemala’s economy - assisted in a coup - led to decades of destructive civil wars. • U. S. tried similar policy in Cuba to overthrow Fidel Castro who defeated U.S.-supported dictator Fulgencio Batista. • In the Middle East - CIA intervened to support of dictatorship unfriendly to American corporations - instigated coup against the nationalist head of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh - bribed army officials and paid Iranians to demonstrate against their government.

7. Shifted from Truman’s all-out support for Israel to fostering friendships with Arab nations. • In 1955, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles began talks with Egypt about American support to build the Aswan Dam on the Nile River. • In 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser, sought arms from Communist Czechoslovakia. • Dulles called off deal for the dam - Nasser seized Suez Canal, then owned by British and French - Israel responded by attacking Egypt with the help of France and Britain. • Eisenhower opposed intervention - Egyptians had claimed their own territory. • U. S. remained out of the Suez crisis but stated U. S. would actively combat communism in the Middle East, invoking the “Eisenhower Doctrine.” • The Nuclear Arms Race • Countering perceived Communist inroads abroad but reduction of superpower tensions.

8. Eisenhower and moderate Khrushchev met in Geneva in 1955 for the first time since the end of World War II. • In August 1957 Soviets test-fired first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and two months later beat the U. S into space by launching Sputnik, first artificial satellite to circle the earth. • Eisenhower created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and signing the National Defense Education Act - assistance for students in math, foreign languages, and science - diminish public panic. • American nuclear superiority no guarantee for security - Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons to devastate the United States. • Eisenhower cancelled espionage flights over the Soviet Union for a possible nuclear test ban treaty - order one day too late - Soviet missile shot down a U-2 spy plane over Soviet territory. • Eisenhower’s “more bang for the buck” defense budget increased U.S. nuclear capacity -quadrupling stockpile. • Eisenhower warned about the growing influence of the “military industrial complex” in American government and life.

9. New Work and Living Patterns in an Economy of Abundance • Technology Transforms Agriculture and Industry • 1940 to 1960 – increased output of American farms - number of farm workers declined by nearly one-third. • Greater crop specialization, more intensive use of fertilizers, and mechanization. • Decline of family farms and the growth of agribusinesses -causes and consequences of mechanization. • Small farmers core of rural poverty - overlooked in celebration of affluence. • Southern landowners replaced sharecroppers with machines - thousands of African Americans moved to cities and urban poverty. • New technology, cheap oil, ample markets abroad, and little foreign competition increased industrial production. • Labor unions enjoyed greatest success in the 1950s, and real earnings for production workers shot up 40 percent.

10. Workers not represented by unions severely disadvantaged. • Percentage of unionized workers declined - economy shifted from production to service - most service industries resisted unionization. • Demand for female workers grew – more clerical and service jobs. • Burgeoning Suburbs and Declining Cities • In the 1950s suburbs symbolized affluent society. • Government subsidized home ownership with low-interest mortgage guarantees through Federal Housing Administration, Veterans Administration and by making interest on mortgages tax deductible. • By 1960s suburbs came under attack - bulldozing natural environment, creating groundwater contamination, disrupting wildlife patterns, and adding to the polarization of society, especially along racial lines. • White residents joined the suburban migration - blacks moved to cities for economic opportunity – black population in most cities increased by 50 percent during the 1950s. • The Rise of the Sun Belt • Americans on the move westward as well as to the suburbs.

11. Pleasant natural environment and promise of economic opportunity drew new residents to the West and Southwest. • Importance of defense industry to South and West - referred to as “Gun Belt.” • Surging population and industry soon - environmental concerns - water to cities and agribusinesses necessitated building dams and reservoirs on previously free-flowing rivers. • High-technology basis for postwar economic development drew well educated, highly skilled workers to the West, but the economic promise also attracted the poor. • Mexican American population grew, especially in California and Texas. • Hernandez v. Texas - Supreme Court ruled that systematic exclusion of Hispanics from juries violated constitutional guarantee of equal protection. • The Democratization of Higher Education • More families could afford to keep children in school longer - tax dollars spent on higher education doubled from 1950 to 1960.

12. Though enrollments of black students and white female students increased modestly through the 1950s, the increase did not nearly match that of white males. The Culture of Abundance • Consumption Rules the Day • Consumption a reigning value, vital for economic prosperity - to individuals’ identity and status. • Population surge and consumer borrowing, spurred abundance. • Women in the labor force to support themselves and their families - desire to secure new consumer products. • The Revival of Domesticity and Religion • Married women in the labor force but dominant ideology celebrated traditional family life gender roles. • Emphasis on home and family life reflected anxieties about the cold war and nuclear menace. • Writer and feminist Betty Friedan idealized women’s domestic roles in her book The Feminine Mystique.

13. Glorification of domesticity clashed with married women’s participation in the labor force - most Americans embodied the family ideal. • Surge of interest in religion. • Reassurance and peace of mind in the nuclear age - ministers such as Billy Graham turned cold war into a holy war - communism “a great sinister anti-Christian movement masterminded by Satan.” • Television Transforms Culture and Politics • New medium of television offered Americans welcome respite from cold war anxieties. • Comedies that projected family ideal and feminine mystique. • In the 1950s viewers tuned in to debates and candidates forced to spend huge sums of money for TV spots. • Television dubbed a “vast wasteland,” but it dominated Americans’ leisure time, influenced their consumption patterns, and shaped their perceptions of the nation’s leadership.

14. Countercurrents • Pockets of dissent underlay complacency of the 1950s. • Politics of consensus, materialism and conformity celebrated in popular culture. • Questioned loss of traditional masculinity; Playboy in 1953. • Alfred Kinsey’s studies on sexual behavior - men’s and women’s sexual conduct. • Rock and roll music. • Beat generation - a small group of literary figures based in New York City’s Greenwich Village and in San Francisco. • Bold new styles in the visual arts Emergence of a Civil Rights Movement • African Americans Challenge the Supreme Court and the President • Black migration from South to areas where they could vote and exert political pressure, cold war concerns raised by white leaders, and organizational structure for blacks in the segregated Southspurredblack protest in the 1950s.

15. The legal strategy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) - crowning achievement with the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. • Eisenhower refused to endorse Brown - keep his distance from civil rights issues - fortified southern resistance to school desegregation - fueled the gravest constitutional crisis since the Civil War. • Little Rock, Arkansas (1957) governor, Orval Faubus, ordered National Guard troops to block the enrollment of nine black students at Central High School. • Eisenhower forced to send army troops to enforce desegregation at Little Rock - first federal military intervention in the South since Reconstruction. • Eisenhower ordered integration of public facilities in Washington, D.C., on military bases, and supported first federal civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. • Montgomery and Mass Protest • Black protest had a long tradition in American society.

16. 1950s and 1960s - masses involved, willingness to confront white institutions directly, and use of nonviolence and passive resistance to bring about change. • First sustained protest to claim national attention in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955 - Rosa Parks violated local segregation ordinance - city-wide boycott of buses. • Parks from local NAACP - critical foundations for the black freedom struggle throughout the South. • The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) organized a bus boycott - leader was Martin Luther King Jr., a pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. • Montgomery’s blacks summoned their courage and determination demonstrating that blacks could sustain a lengthy protest and would not be intimidated. • In January 1957 - black clergy from the South me to coordinate local protests against segregation and disenfranchisement. • Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), NAACP, and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) - centers in southern cities - paved way for mass movement that would revolutionize the racial system in the South.