2. Was the primary threat from the Soviet Union
military or ideological?
3. Was it right for the Truman administration to
frame the US - Soviet relationship in the late
'40s as "us vs. them"?
4. Was Truman right to fire MacArthur when and
how he did?
a. What would have happened if MacArthur had gotten his
way and expanded the conflict with the Chinese?
6. Demobilization - Economic anxieties
• falling GNP
• rising prices (end of price controls)
• labor troubles - Taft-Hartley (“slave labor
law”) passed by R Congress
– Outlawed “closed shop”
– Unions liable for damages
– Govt could step in an ask for injunction
– Leaders took noncommunist oath
• GI Bill (Servicemen's Readjustment Act)
• loans for college, homes, farms, businesses
8. Economic Boom 1950-70
• defense spending (begins with Korea)
• cheap energy (oil from M.E.)
• higher productivity
o efficient machinery & increase in education
• economic shift out of agriculture
o Middle class doubles
o Migration to the Sunbelt
11. Election of 1948
•Truman (D) v. Dewey
(R)
•Eisenhower refuses
nomination
•Dems split
–“Dixiecrats” (Southern
Dems) nominate Strom
Thurman on States’
Rights Party ticket;
opposed to civil rights
–Henry Wallace – new
progressive party
12. DemocraticPlatform
"Our immediate task is
to remove the last
remnants of the barriers
which stand between
millions of our citizens
and their birthright.
There is no justifiable
reason for discrimination
because of ancestry or
religion or race or color."
13.
14. Truman’s Second Term
Truman wins 2nd term; 5th term for New Deal Coalition;
Dems win Congress
liberalism - still a force in American politics
“Fair Deal”
–Improved housing**
–Universal healthcare
–Full employment
–Higher minimum wage**
–Price supports for farmers
–Extending Social Security**
–Civil rights – integrated the armed forces
Opposed by conservative R’s and D’s
15. When does the "real value" drop significantly? What
would cause this?
16. Obama SOTU clip - $9.00 minimum
wage
• The grey line shows the minimum wage, unadjusted for inflation, whereas
•
the blue line shows you what it would be worth in 2012.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt first created the minimum wage in
1938, it was 25 cents. Truman got it raised from 40 - 75 cents. Adjusted
•
for inflation, that would be worth $4.07 today.
The minimum wage had its lowest buying power in 1948, when it was
worth about $3.81 in today's dollars. It had its highest buying power in
•
1968, when it was worth about $10.56.
At $7.25 in 2012, our current minimum wage is in the middle of those two
•
extremes.
President Obama's proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9 would put it
back to a value last seen in the early 1980s.
17.
18. A Herblock cartoon
from March 1949
depicts a glum-
looking President
Harry S. Truman
and “John Q.
Public” inspecting
worm-ridden apples
representing
Truman’s Fair
Deal proposals
such as civil rights
and rent controls.
The alliance of
19. Objectives
•Outline the Eisenhower-Dulles approach to the
Cold War and the nuclear arms race with the
Soviet Union.
•Define the basic principles of Eisenhower’s
foreign policy in Vietnam, the Middle East, and
Cuba.
•Describe the practice of “Eisenhower
Republicanism” in the 1950s, including
domestic consequences of the Cold War.
22. •As the first Republican president in 2 decades,
what challenges do you think Eisenhower faced
when entering office?
•How do you think Ike’s experience as military
commander (supreme Allied Commander
Europe, army chief of staff, then NATO
supreme commander) impacted his views on
foreign policy?
23. “Should any political party attempt
to abolish Social Security,
unemployment insurance, and
“Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment
insurance, and eliminate labor and farm programs, you would not hear of that party
again in our political history”~ Ike
eliminate labor and farm programs,
you would not hear of that party
again in our political history”~ Ike
24. Ike’s “Dynamic Conservatism”
•Small government
•Guard US from “creeping socialism”
•Put brakes on military build up & balance
the budget
•Curbed TVA
•Condemned polio vaccine at “Socialized
medicine”
25. “Unscrambling the eggs” fried
by New and Fair Dealers
Operation Wetback – illegal imm. hurt undercut
bracero program
– 1 million illegal imm. deported in 54
Native American Policy
– cancel tribal preservation policies in “Indian New
Deal”
– “terminate” tribes as legal entities
– Dawes Severalty Act 1887 – assimilation
– NA resisted – policy abandoned in 61
**realized he had to cement New Deal reforms for the
survival of his party – Social Security, unemployment,
labor, farm programs, etc.
26.
27. One Upping the NewDeal
•Interstate Highway Act 56
•Construction jobs
•Sped suburbanization
•Positives
• Benefits trucking, automobile, oil and
travel industries
•Negatives
• robbed RR of business, air quality,
energy consumption, city centers
devastated by competing commercial
suburbs
28. "Well, I Got
That In,
All Right"
Source: Herblock, the Washington Post, January 1958.
29. A BOLD Foreign Policy
•BRINKMANSHIP – Sec. of State
John Foster Dulles
•“massive retaliation”
•Scale back conventional forces –
army, navy
•Strategic Air Command – build
up of airfleet that carried city-
flattening nukes
•Khrushchev rejects “open skies”
policy
•Hungarian uprising in 56 proved
this policy too heavy for minor
crises
•Too rigid, expensive
30. The Hungarian Uprising: 1956
Imre Nagy,
} Promised free Hungarian
elections. Prime
Minister
} This could lead
to the end of
communist rule
in Hungary.
31. The Vietnam NightmareBegins
•Ho Chi minh led nationalists
against Fr colonial rule
•US fruitlessly aided Fr
financially, but no military aid
•Dien Bien Phu fell to Ho -
March 54
•Geneva Accords – divided
Vietnam @ 17th parallel
•Ho – communist govt in
North; agreed to unifying
elections – NEVER HELD
•Ngo Dinh Diem – pro-West
govt in South (Saigon)
backed by US militarily and
financially
32. Trouble in the MiddleEast
•Iran
•Resisted W. oil
companies
•CIA backed coup to
install Shah Mohammed
Reza Pahlevi – dictator
•SECURED W. oil
interests, but fueled
resentment among
Iranians – took revenge
20 yrs later
33. Suez Crisis
•US withdrew aid to build dam on Nile
•Nasser nationalizes Suez Canal (US and Br
stockholders) – threatened W. oil supplies
•Fr, GB, and Israel attack Egypt – Oct. 56
•US refused to release emergency oil supplies
to allies
•Fr & GB withdrew – UN called in to stabilize
**Turning Point – US = net oil importer, no
longer possessed “oil weapon;” OPEC formed –
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Venezuela
35. The Eisenhower Doctrine - 1957
Ike seeks to curb SU
influence in Middle East
after Suez War
Secure W. oil resources
military and/or economic
assistance to countries
facing aggression from
communist nations
36. Premier Nikita Khrushchev
About the capitalist
states, it doesn't
depend on you
whether we
(Soviet Union) exist.
If you don't like us,
don't accept our
invitations, and don't
invite us to come De-Stalinization
Program
to see you. Whether
you like it our not, history is on our
side. We will bury you. -- 1956
37. Nikita Khrushchev comes to power in SU and believes in
PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE;
economic and scientific competition
“You do not like Communism. We do not like
capitalism. There is only one way out – peaceful co-
existence.”
“We may argue. The main thing is to argue without
using weapons.”
38. U2 Spy Incident: Renewed Confrontation
•SU: NO “Open Skies” @
Geneva
•U.S. begins
reconnaissance flights over
S.U.
•U2 spy plane (piloted by
Francis Gary Powers) shot
down by Soviet anti-aircraft
in May 1960
•RESULT: K calls off
summit to discuss arms
race, takes away Ike’s
invite to S.U.
39. Castro’s Cuba
•LA resented US aid to Europe, intervention in
LA affairs, and support of dictators
•US supported Batista in exchange for
encouraging US investments
•59 – Castro’s revolution
–Seized US property
–Aligned w/ Moscow
•Monroe Doctrine?? Domino effect?
•Ike: Org. of American States, $500 in aid to LA
– too little too late!
40. U-2 Spy Incident (1960)
Col. Francis Gary
Powers’ plane was
shot down over Soviet
airspace.
