APUSH The Eisenhower Years, 1952-1960

Dwight Eisenhower

Former U.S General who led the Allied forces in D-Day during WWII who was the Republican candidate for president in the election of 1952 with the slogan "I like Ike". He won over Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic candidate. As president, he filled his cabinet with successful corporate executives and was criticized for leaving important decisions to others, although proven untrue. In domestic policies, he described his approach as "modern Republicanism", and authorized the interstate highway system. He left business alone to prosper, which it did. His foreign affairs mostly concerned the Cold War and adopted the _________ Doctrine. He won reelection in 1956.

Richard Nixon

The California senator who became a prominent figure in politics when he attacked Communists in the Alger Hiss case. To please conservatives in the election of 1952, he ran for vice-president with Dwight Eisenhower. He almost spoiled the campaign when he was accused of using campaign funds for his own personal use. However, he made use of television to broadcast his Checkers speech, saying that the only gift he received was of his dog Checkers and that his family loved him and would not return him. His family also appeared the television segment, winning the hearts of many Americans. He was later elected president of the United States.

modern Republicanism

What Eisenhower called his balanced and moderate approach to domestic affairs. He approved of helping the aged and poor while still limiting the power of the central government. For example, he extended Social Security to 10 million more citizens, minimum wage was raised, and more public housing was built. However, Eisenhower did not approve of federal health care insurance and federal aid to education. This policy also still called for a large arms buildup and an active foreign policy. Eisenhower’s critics called this "the bland leading the bland".

Oveta Culp Hobby

The first woman who was a member of a Republican cabinet and headed the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), a new department that Eisenhower created in 1953 which consolidated the administration of welfare programs.

soil-bank program

A program initiated by the Eisenhower administration as part of "modern Republicanism" that was designed to help farmers by reducing farm production and thereby increasing farm income.

Highway Act (1956)

This act passed under Eisenhower authorized the construction of 42,000 miles of interstate highways that would link all the nation’s major cities. This system would become a model for the rest of the world once completed. The new taxes on fuel, tires, and vehicles was justified as necessary for improving national defense. As a public works project, it created jobs, promoted the trucking industry, accelerated the growth of the suburbs, and contributed to a more homogenous national culture. It also hurt the railroads and public transportation (which the poor and old depended on), as well as the environment.

John Foster Dulles; "brinkmanship"

Eisenhower’s Secretary of State who would help shape U.S foreign policy during his presidency. He saw Kennan and Truman’s containment policy as too passive and wanted to directly challenge the Soviet Union and the PRC. He wanted the U.S liberate the satellite nations under the USSR and encouraged the Nationalist government of Taiwan to assert itself against the Communist mainland. He declared that if America pushed the Communists into war, they would back down because of American nuclear superiority. This pleased conservatives but alarmed others, and Eisenhower kept him from carrying his ideas to an extreme. His hardline was known as __________. He also supported massive retaliation.

massive retaliation

The policy that a nation should focus on the buildup of nuclear weapons rather than on conventional forces of the army and navy. In theory, this would save money, help balance the federal budget, and increase pressure on potential enemies. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles advocated for this policy. In 1953, the U.S developed the hydrogen bomb, which was much more powerful than the atomic bomb. However, the Soviet Union soon had their own. The buildup of nuclear weapons proved a deterrent from the superpowers fighting a full-scale war, but caused much tension and failed to stop many "brushfire" wars to break out in developing nations.

Third World

After the end of WWII, most of the colonial empires collapsed. Between 1947 and 1962, many colonies in Asia and Africa gained their independence. India and Pakistan became nations in 1947 and the Dutch East Indies became Indonesia in 1949. Ghana gained independence in 1957, and many other nations followed. They were known as _________ because they were often not industrialized and lacked stable political and economic institutions. They often looked for foreign aid from either the U.S or the Soviet Union, making them easy pawns of the Cold War.

Iran

In 1953 the CIA helped overthrow a government in Iran that had tried to nationalize the holding of foreign oil companies which allowed the return of Reza Pahlavi as shah of Iran. He provided the West with favorable oil prices and made enormous purchases of American arms.

covert action

Using undercover intervention in the internal politics of other nations which became popular under Eisenhower as it seemed less objectionable than employing U.S troops and proved less expensive. For example, the CIA was active in the 1953 overthrow of the Iranian government that tried to nationalize the hold of foreign oil companies. In 1954, the CIA overthrew a leftist government that threatened American business interests in Guatemala.

Indochina

The Southeast Asian colony that was owned by the French until WWII when the Japanese took the region over. After the war, France tried to retake the colony, but native Vietnamese and Cambodians resisted. By 1950, the nationalist and Communist leader Ho Chi Minh backed by China and the Soviet Union attacked the French troops supported by aid from the U.S. In 1954, the French army was forced to surrender at Dien Bien Phu and tried to convince the U.S to send troops, to no avail. France agreed to give up _______ during the Geneva Conference of 1954, and the region was divided into nations of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

Geneva Conference

A conference held in 1954 in which France agreed to give up Indochina. The region would be divided into the independent nations of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Vietnam was to temporarily divided at the 17th parallel until a general election could be held. However, this election was never held.

Ho Chi Minh

The nationalist and Communist leader who established a communist dictatorship in North Vietnam after freeing Vietnam from French colonial rule in 1954.

Vietnam

Became an independent nation in 1954 in the Geneva conference. It was supposed to be only temporarily divided until a general election could be held, but the election never occurred. In North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh established a Communist dictatorship. Another government under Ngo Dinh Diem developed in South Vietnam who support came from anticommunist, Catholic, and urban Vietnamese, many of whom had fled from Communist rule in the North. South Vietnam feared the Communists would win the election, thus it was never held. The U.S would give over $1 billion in economic and military aid to South Vietnam between 1955 and 1961, which was justified by Eisenhower’s domino theory.

domino theory

Initially used to justify giving a lot of aid to South Vietnam, this theory was devised by Eisenhower. It stated that if South Vietnam fell under Communist control, one nation after another in Southeast Asia would also fall, until Australia and New Zealand were in danger. Thus, the U.S had to do anything in order to keep South Vietnam from going to Communist rule.

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (1954)

A regional defense pact that Secretary of State Dulles put together to prevent the "fall" to communism of South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It was essentially the Asian version of NATO in which eight nations (United States, Great Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan) agreed to defend one another in case of attack.

Suez Canal crisis (1956)

When the Arab nationalist General Gamal Nasser of Egypt asked the U.S for funds to build the Aswan Dam on the Nile River, the U.S refused because Egypt threatened Israel’s security. Nasser then asked the U.S.S.R, who provided limited financing. In July 1956, he seized and nationalized the British- and French-owned Suez Canal, seeking another source of funds. This canal threatened Western Europe’s supply line to Middle Eastern oil, and Britain, France, and Israel carried out a surprise attack to retake the canal. Eisenhower was furious that he had been kept in the dark by his allies, and sponsored a U.N resolution condemning the Egypt invasion. The troops were pressured to withdraw. After this, Britain and France would never be major colonial powers again.

Eisenhower Doctrine

After the Suez Canal crisis, the United States replaced Great Britain and France as the leading Western influence in the Middle East. However, there was a growing Communist influence in Egypt and Syria. In the _______, declared in 1957, the U.S pledged economic and military aid to any Middle Eastern country threatened by communism. For example, in Lebanon in 1958, Eisenhower sent 14,000 marines to prevent the outbreak of a civil war between Christians and Muslims.

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

In 1960, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran joined Venezuela to from the ____________ in 1960 as oil was shaping up to be a major foreign policy issue. Western countries were becoming dependent on Middle Eastern oil, Arab nationalism as spreading, and there was ongoing tensions and conflict between Israel and Palestinian refugees.

"spirit of Geneva"

The first sign that the Cold War was "thawing". Eisenhower called for a slowdown in the arms race and presented and atoms for peace plan after Stalin’s death. The Soviet Union withdrew troops from Austria and developed peaceful relations to Greece and Turkey. In 1955, Eisenhower and the new Soviet Premier, Nikolai Bulganin, met in Geneva, Switzerland where Eisenhower proposed the nation agree to "open skies" – open to aerial photography by the opposing nation. This eliminate the risk of a surprise nuclear attack. Bulganin rejected, but the tension were still lifting. In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev denounced the crimes of Joseph Stalin and supported "peaceful existence" in the West.

Hungarian revolt

In October 1956, Hungary succeeded in overthrowing a government backed by Moscow, which was replaced by more liberal leaders who wanted to pull Hungary out of the Warsaw Pact. Khrushchev sent Soviet tanks to crush the new government and restore control over Hungary. The U.S took no action in the crisis because Eisenhower feared it would start a world war. This also gave de facto recognition of the Soviet sphere of influence, ending Dulles’ talk of liberating the region. It ended the first thaw in the Cold War.

Sputnik

The name of the first two satellites put into orbit around the earth, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. This alarmed the United States, who technological leadership came into question. U.S attempts to launch satellites failed. Also, satellites intensified of a nuclear war since missiles that launched the satellites could deliver a bomb anywhere in the world in minutes with nothing to defend against them. It prompted the U.S to pass the National Defense and Education Act (NDEA) in 1958 to give federal money to schools for science and foreign language education. NASA was created the same year. Thus, the space race began.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Created in 1958 by Congress to direct the U.S efforts to build missiles and explore outer space in attempt to beat the Soviet Union in the space race.

U-2 incident

In 1960, two weeks before Eisenhower was scheduled to meet Khrushchev in Paris (a result of the "spirit of Camp David" which had diffused the tension caused by the Second Berlin crisis of 1958), a high-altitude U.S spy plane, a U-2, was shot down by the Soviets, exposing a U.S tactic for gaining information. The U.S had been sending these planes ever since the the Soviets had rejected the open-sky proposals in 1955. Eisenhower took responsibility after they were exposed by the U-2 incident, but Khrushchev had little choice but to denounce him and call off the Paris summit.

Fidel Castro

Overthrew the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Once in power, he nationalized American-owned businesses and properties in Cuba. After the U.S cut off trade with Cuba, he turned to the Soviets for support. He also revealed that he was a Marxist, setting up a Communist totalitarian state.

Cuba

Went under the power of dictator Fidel Castro in 1959 who nationalized American-owned businesses and properties. Eisenhower cut off trade with the country, but it soon turned for support from the Soviet Union. Castro made it into a Communist totalitarian state. People feared this threat, as _____ was only 90 miles away from Florida. Eisenhower authorized the CIA to train anticommunist Cuban exiles to retake their island, but the decision to go ahead with the scheme was left up to the next president.

military-industrial complex

Part of Eisenhower’s farewell speech in 1961 in which he warned against the negative impact of the Cold War on U.S Society. He feared the arms race had taken a momentum and logic of its own, setting the U.S on a path to become a ________. People in the 1960s feared that the U.S might go down the path of ancient republics and, like Rome, turn into a military, or imperial, state.

civil rights

The origins of the modern civil rights movement can be traced to the urban migration of African Americans. During the New Deal, the African Americans in the North joined the Democrats and had a growing influence in party politics in the 1950s. Also, during the Cold War, when the U.S reputation for freedom and democracy was competing against Communist ideology for the hearts of people in Africa and Asia, racial segregation and discrimination stood out as wrongs that needed to be corrected. The first well-publicized wins for the civil rights movement was admitting Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and Truman introducing civil rights legislation and integrating the armed forces in 1948.

Jackie Robinson

The first African American to play on a major league baseball team for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

The monumental supreme court case that overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that ruled that segregation was allowed in "separate but equal" facilities, including schools. A team of NAACP lawyers led by Thurgood Marshall argued that segregation of black children in the public schools was unconstitutional because it violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of "equal protection of the laws" In May 1954, writing for a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren ruled that (1) "separate facilities are inherently equal" and unconstitutional and (2) segregation in the schools should end with "all deliberate speed".

Earl Warren

The Supreme Court Chief Justice during the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. He ruled in favor of overturning Plessy v. Ferguson.

Little Rock crisis

After the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, states in the Deep South fought the decision with a variety of tactics, including the temporary closing of the public schools. In 1957, Governor Orval Faubus used the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine African Americans from entering Little Rock Central High School, as ordered by federal court. Eisenhower intervened by ordering federal troops to stand guard in Little Rock and protect the black students as they entered school, becoming the first president since Reconstruction to use federal troops to protect the rights of African Americans.

Rosa Parks

An African American woman who was the secretary for the NAACP arrested in 1955 for not giving up her seat on a bus to move to the back in Montgomery, Alabama. This incident sparked the Montgomery bus boycott

Montgomery bus boycott

Started in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 after Rosa Park was arrested for violating the bus segregation law that state that blacks had to give up their seats for whites and had to sit in the back of the bus. Civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr. led African Americans in a boycott of all Montgomery buses, instead encouraging people to carpool or walk. In 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation laws were unconstitutional.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The most famous African American civil rights leader during the 1950s and 1960s until his assassination in Memphis in 1968. He was the minister of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama. He led the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-1956. In 1957, he formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. When he and his followers were jailed in Birmingham, Alabama for conducting for local officials deemed as a illegal march, he wrote "Letter from Birmingham Jail". He led the March on Washington in 1963 where he said his "I Have a Dream" speech. In 1964, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. When King and his followers held a march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, they were met with police beatings to which Johnson sent federal troops to protect Dr. King and other civil rights demonstrators.

civil rights acts of 1957, 1960

These laws were signed by President Eisenhower and the first such laws to by enacted by the U.S congress since Reconstruction. They provided for a permanent Civil Rights Commission and gave the Justice Department new powers to protect the voting rights of blacks. However, southern leaders still found ways to discourage African Americans from voting.

Civil Rights Commission

Created under the civil rights act of 1957 that is charged with the responsibility for investigating, reporting on, and making civil rights concerning civil rights issues that face the nation

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

Formed by Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1957 to organize ministers and churches in the South to get church behind the civil rights struggle. It taught that civil rights could be achieved through nonviolent protest – violence could never be utilized to achieve goals, no matter what the circumstance.

nonviolent protest

A method of protesting for civil rights used by Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1950s and 1960s that did not use violence but rather things like boycotts, marches, speeches, and civil disobedience.

sit-in movement

A type of civil disobedience that was started in February 1960 by college students in Greensboro, North Carolina after they were refused service at a segregated Woolworth’s counter. Other students joined in by deliberately sitting in restricted areas to call attention to the injustice. Sometimes they would get arrested, and they underwent lots of verbal and physical harassment. This movement spread to other establishments, such as segregated churches (kneel-ins). In the early 1960s, this tactic led to the integration of dozens of Southern establishments.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

Created in 1960 to help organize the new sit-in movement by younger African Americans, eager for the battle for civil rights to develop at a faster pace. They wanted immediate, not gradual, change. During the first years, it attracted both white and black members. Most of the whites were from northern universities.

corporate America

During the 1950s, many industries began to be controlled by large conglomerates (umbrella corporation?) with diversified holdings. Such was true for the food processing, hotel, transportation, insurance, and banking industries. This led to rise in white-collar jobs; for the first time, more American workers held white-collar jobs than blue-collar. To be a part of a top corporation was to be on the road to success. This companies promoted teamwork and conformity, like a suit dress code. Finally, after the AF of L and the CIO merged in 1955, big unions became more powerful while becoming more conservative as blue-collar workers started earning more comfortable incomes.

The Organizational Man

A book written by the social scientist William Whyte that analyzed the conformity and conservatism of suburban life during the 1950s brought out by corporate American and consumerism.

consumer culture

Prevalent during the 1950s with the era’s prosperity and conformity. During this era, the media, especially in television, used aggressive advertising by name brands. This created a common material wants and shopping centers and credit cards provided quick means of getting them. Corporations were on the rise, and standardized franchises like McDonalds quickly began to replace "mom and pop" stores.

David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd

Published in 1958 by a Harvard sociologist that criticized the replacement of "inner-directed" individuals in society with "other-directed" conformists.

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society

Published in 1958 by the economist that discussed the failure of wealthy Americans to address the need for increased social spending for the common good. These ideas influenced the later Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

An early 1950s book and movie that compared the sterility sameness, and lack of excitement of postwar work and family life with the vitality felt by man World War II veterans during their wartime experiences.

Beatniks/The Beat Generation

A group of rebellious writers and intellectuals led by Jack Kerouac (On the Road in which the characters travel for the joy of traveling) and poet Allen Ginsberg ("Howl" about the evils of modern society). This group advocated spontaneity, use of drugs, and rebellion against societal standards. This group became the models for the youth rebellion of the sixties.