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Readings From an open (non-‐copyright) online text on the Boundless Website https://www.boundless.com/u-‐s-‐history/ Module: The Cold War The Cold War The Cold War (1945–1991) was a sustained state of political and military tension between the U.S. and Soviet Union. The Cold War began after the nations' temporary wartime alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the USSR and U.S. as two superpowers with profound economic and political differences. The Cold War was so named as it never featured direct military action. However, both countries repeatedly engaged in indirect confrontations through proxy wars. Conflicting Post-‐War Goals Several postwar disagreements between western and Soviet leaders were related to their differing interpretations of wartime and immediate post-‐war conferences. At the February 1945 Yalta Conference, they could not reach firm agreements on crucial postwar questions like the occupation of Germany and postwar reparations from Germany. The Soviets had agreed to the Declaration of Liberated Europe at Yalta. This promised countries liberated from Nazi control the opportunity to elect a government of their choosing. The Soviet Union would not abide by this pledge and instead install Communist regimes throughout Eastern Europe by force. Given Russia's historical experience of frequent invasions and the immense death toll of the war (estimated at 27 million), the Soviet Union sought to increase security by dominating the internal affairs of countries that bordered it. Roosevelt’s goals (and Truman’s) were military victory, the achievement of global American economic supremacy, and the creation of a world peace organization. At the Potsdam Conference July 1945, the Allies met to decide how to administer the defeated Nazi Germany. Serious differences emerged over the future development of Germany and Eastern Europe. At Potsdam, the U.S. was represented by Harry S Truman, who relied on a set of advisers who took a harder line toward Moscow than Roosevelt had done. Administration officials favoring cooperation with the Soviet Union and the incorporation of socialist economies into a world trade system were marginalized. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki added to Soviet distrust of the United States, as the Soviets were given little real influence in occupied Japan. Conflicting Ideologies There were fundamental contrasts between the economies and cultures of the U.S. and Soviet Union. The Soviets feared capitalist "encirclement" while the U.S. feared the Soviet spread of communism around the world.

U.S.: Prosperity Based in Open Markets U.S. leaders hoped to shape the postwar world by opening up markets to international trade. The U.S., as the world's greatest industrial power and as one of the few countries physically unscathed by the war, stood to gain enormously from opening the entire world to unfettered trade. The U.S. would have a global market for its exports, as well as unrestricted access to vital raw materials. Determined to avoid another economic catastrophe like that of the 1930s, U.S. leaders saw the creation of the postwar order as a way to ensure continuing prosperity. Soviets: Prosperity Based in Security The American vision of the postwar world conflicted with the goals of Soviet leaders who were also motivated to shape postwar Europe. Since 1924, the Soviet Union had placed a high priority on its own security and internal development. After the war, Stalin sought to secure the Soviet Union's western border by installing communist-‐dominated regimes under Soviet influence in bordering countries. During and immediately after the war, the Soviet Union annexed several countries as satellite states, a move viewed as aggression by Western powers. Tensions Grow In February 1946, George F. Kennan's Long Telegram from Moscow articulated the growing hard line against the Soviets. It argued that the Soviet Union was motivated by both traditional Russian imperialism and by Marxist ideology. Soviet behavior was inherently expansionist and paranoid, posing a threat to the United States and its allies. That September, the Soviets produced the Novikov Telegram. This telegram, sent by the Soviet ambassador to the U.S., portrayed the U.S. as being in the grip of monopoly capitalists who were building up military capability "to prepare the conditions for winning world supremacy in a new war". On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill gave a speech declaring that an "iron curtain" had descended across Europe. To the Soviets, the speech incited the West to begin a war with the USSR, as it called for an alliance against the Soviets. In September 1947, the Soviets created Cominform to enforce orthodoxy within the international communist movement and tighten political control over Soviet satellites through coordination of communist parties in the Eastern Bloc. Stalin was also fearful of a reconstituted Germany; his vision of a post-‐war Germany did not include the ability to rearm or pose any kind of threat to the Soviet Union. In June of 1948, after the Marshall Plan and massive electoral losses for communist parties, Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade (June 24, 1948 – May 12, 1949), one of the first major crises of the Cold War. In this blockade, the Soviets prevented food, materials and supplies from arriving in West Berlin. The United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries began the massive "Berlin airlift", supplying West Berlin with food and other provisions. In May 1949, Stalin backed down and lifted the blockade.

Truman Takes Office In July 1944, Truman was nominated to run for Vice President with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On January 20, 1945, he took the vice-‐presidential oath, and after President Roosevelt's unexpected death only 82 days later, on April 12, 1945, he was sworn in as the nations' 33 rd President. Truman later called his first year as President a "year of decisions." During his first two months, he oversaw the ending of the war in Europe; he participated in a conference at Potsdam, Germany, which governed the defeat of Germany and laid groundwork for the final stage of the war against Japan; and he approved the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan. Peacetime Foreign Policy Truman's presidency was marked throughout by important foreign policy initiatives. Central to almost everything Truman undertook in his foreign policy was the desire to prevent the expansion of the influence of the Soviet Union. The Truman Doctrine was an enunciation of American willingness to provide military aid to countries resisting communist insurgencies; the Marshall Plan sought to revive the economies of the nations of Europe in the hope that communism would not thrive in the midst of prosperity; and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) built a military barrier confronting the Soviet-‐dominated part of Europe. The Soviets would later form their own collective security organization-‐The Warsaw Pact. This first year of Truman's presidency also saw the founding of the United Nations (which replaced the defunct League of Nations and unlike the League the U.S. joined the UN). The one time during his presidency when a communist nation invaded a non-‐ communist one—when North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950—Truman responded by waging undeclared war. Peacetime Domestic Policy Transitioning the Economy The end of World War II was followed by an uneasy transition from war to a peacetime economy. Little planning had taken place, with officials assuming that it would take a year to beat Japan once war in Europe ceased, giving them time to create proposals. With the war's sudden end and an immediate clamor for demobilization, little work had been done to plan how best to transition to peacetime production of goods while avoiding mass unemployment for returning veterans. There was no consensus among government officials as to what economic course the postwar U.S. should steer. The president was faced with the reawakening of labor-‐management conflicts that had lain dormant during the war years, severe shortages in housing and consumer products, and widespread dissatisfaction with inflation. Added to this polarized environment was a wave of destabilizing strikes in major industries, and Truman's

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response to them was generally seen as ineffective. A serious steel strike in January 1946 involving 800,000 workers—the largest in the nation's history—was followed by a coal strike in April and a rail strike in May. Although labor strife was muted after the settlement of the railway strike, it continued throughout Truman's presidency. Opposition from Republicans In addition to economic woes, because Roosevelt had not paid attention to Congress in his final years, Truman faced a body where Republicans and conservative southern Democrats formed a powerful voting bloc. This dissatisfaction with the Truman administration's policies led to large Democratic losses in the 1946 midterm elections, when Republicans took control of Congress for the first time since 1930. Truman hoped to extend New Deal social programs to include more government protection and services and to reach more people. Truman’s domestic agenda was named the “Fair Deal.” He was eventually successful in achieving a healthy peacetime economy, but only a few of his social program proposals became law. The Congress, which was much more Republican in its membership during his presidency than it had been during Franklin Roosevelt's, did not usually share Truman's desire to build on the legacy of the New Deal. The Truman administration did go considerably beyond the New Deal in the area of civil rights. Although the conservative Congress thwarted Truman's desire to achieve significant civil rights legislation, he was able to use his powers as President to achieve some important changes. He desegregated the armed forces and forbade racial discrimination in Federal employment. He also established a Committee on Civil Rights. The Republican Congress significantly curtailed the power of labor unions by the Taft–Hartley Act, which was enacted over Truman's veto. The parties did cooperate on some issues; Congress passed the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, making the Speaker of the House rather than the Secretary of State next in line to the presidency after the vice president. As he readied for the 1948 election, Truman made clear his identity as a Democrat in the New Deal tradition, advocating national health insurance, the repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act, and an aggressive civil rights program. Taken together, it all constituted a broad legislative agenda that came to be called the "Fair Deal". Truman's proposals were not well received by Congress, even with renewed Democratic majorities in Congress after 1948. Containment Containment was a United States policy using numerous strategies to prevent the spread of communism abroad. This policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge communist influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea,

and Vietnam. The basis of the doctrine was articulated in a 1946 cable by U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan, and the term is a translation of the French cordon sanitaire, used to describe Western policy toward the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Containment is associated most strongly with the policies of U.S. President Harry Truman (1945–53), including the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense pact. Further, President Lyndon Johnson (1963–69) cited containment as a justification for his policies in Vietnam, while President Richard Nixon (1969–74), working with his top adviser Henry Kissinger, rejected containment in favor of friendly relations with the Soviet Union and China. This détente, or relaxation of tensions, involved expanded trade and cultural contacts. Central programs under containment, including NATO and nuclear deterrence, remained in effect even after the end of the war. Following the 1917 communist revolution in Russia, there were calls by Western leaders to isolate the Bolshevik government, which seemed intent on promoting worldwide revolution. In March 1919, French Premier Georges Clemenceau called for a cordon sanitaire, or ring of non-‐communist states, to isolate the Soviet Union. Translating this phrase, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson called for a "quarantine." Both phrases compare communism to a contagious disease. Nonetheless, during World War II, the U.S. and the Soviet Union found themselves allied in opposition to the Axis powers. Key State Department personnel grew increasingly frustrated with and suspicious of the Soviets as the war drew to a close. Averell Harriman, U.S. ambassador in Moscow, once a "confirmed optimist" regarding U.S.-‐Soviet relations, was disillusioned by what he saw as the Soviet betrayal of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising as well as by violations of the February 1945 Yalta Agreement concerning Poland. Harriman would later have significant influence in forming Truman's views on the Soviet Union. In February 1946, the U.S. State Department asked George F. Kennan, then at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, why the Russians opposed the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He responded with a wide-‐ ranging analysis of Russian policy now called the "Long Telegram". According to Kennan: • The Soviets perceived themselves to be in a state of perpetual war with capitalism; • The Soviets would use controllable Marxists in the capitalist world as allies; • Soviet aggression was not aligned with the views of the Russian people or with economic reality, but with historic Russian xenophobia and paranoia; • The Soviet government's structure prevented objective or accurate pictures of internal and external reality. Clark Clifford and George Elsey produced a report elaborating on the Long Telegram and proposing concrete policy recommendations based on its analysis. This report,

which recommended "restraining and confining" Soviet influence, was presented to Truman on September 24, 1946. In March 1947, President Truman, a Democrat, asked the Republican controlled Congress to appropriate $400 million in aid to the Greek and Turkish governments, then fighting Communist subversion. Truman pledged to, "support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." This pledge became known as the Truman Doctrine. Portraying the issue as a mighty clash between "totalitarian regimes" and "free peoples", the speech marks the onset of the Cold War and the adoption of containment as official U.S. policy. Truman followed up his speech with a series of measures to contain Soviet influence in Europe, including the Marshall Plan, or European Recovery Program, and NATO, a military alliance between the U.S. and Western European nations created in 1949. Because containment required detailed information about Communist moves, the government relied increasingly on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Established by the National Security Act of 1947, the CIA conducted espionage in foreign lands, some of it visible, more of it secret. Truman approved a classified statement of containment policy called NSC 20/4 in November 1948, the first comprehensive statement of security policy ever created by the United States. The Soviet Union first nuclear test in 1949 prompted the National Security Council to formulate a revised security doctrine. Completed in April 1950, it became known as NSC 68. It concluded that a massive military buildup was necessary to the deal with the Soviet threat. Many Republicans, including John Foster Dulles, concluded that Truman had been too timid. In 1952, Dulles called for rollback and the eventual "liberation" of eastern Europe. Dulles was named Secretary of State by incoming President Dwight Eisenhower, but Eisenhower's decision not to intervene during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 made containment a bipartisan doctrine. President Eisenhower relied on clandestine CIA actions to undermine hostile governments and used economic and military foreign aid to strengthen governments supporting the American position in the Cold War. Containment and the Korean War After World War II, the US attempted to curb Soviet influence on the Korean Peninsula by occupying the southern part of that area. The area occupied by the US became South Korea, while the other part became North Korea. North Korea soon passed into the control of the Communist Party. In May, 1949, fighting between North and South Korean troops broke out near the border between the two nations. In an attempt to add South Korea to the Communist World, North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950. The People's Republic

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of China and the Soviet Union lent their support to North Korea, while the United States did the same to South Korea. On June 25, 1950 a large military force moved across the 38 th parallel in the Republic of Korea. On Saturday, 24 June 1950, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson informed President Truman by telephone, "Mr. President, I have very serious news. The North Koreans have invaded South Korea." Truman and Acheson discussed a U.S. invasion response with defense department principals, who agreed that the United States was obligated to repel military aggression, paralleling it with Adolf Hitler's aggressions in the 1930s, and said that the mistake of appeasement must not be repeated. In his autobiography, President Truman acknowledged that fighting the invasion was essential to the American goal of the global containment of communism as outlined in the National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-‐68). The Korean War was the first militarized instance of containment, as U.S. and South Korea fought against communist North Korea. On June 27, 1950 the United Nations Security Council first adopted a ceasefire resolution. When the United Nations Security Council voted to aid South Korea in stopping North Korean aggression, the United States agreed to send troops to the Korean Peninsula. General Douglas MacArthur was given the command of UN troops in Korea. The United States agreed to send troops over on June 30 along with increasing aid to the French fight against Communists rebels in Indochina. MacArthur was placed in command on July 8. At the beginning the U.S. troops were lacking training and were out of shape. In the first few weeks of fighting the U.S. troops were pushed back to a defensive perimeter at Pusan. However, A rapid U.N. counter-‐offensive then drove the North Koreans past the 38 th Parallel and almost to the Yalu River, when the People's Republic of China (PRC) entered the war on the side of North Korea. Chinese intervention forced the Southern-‐allied forces to retreat behind the 38 th Parallel. General MacArthur wished to expand the war to bombing of China itself (including the possible use of nuclear weapons), but Truman did want to risk expanding the conflict. For his criticism of Truman’s decision, MacArthur was replaced. While not directly committing forces to the conflict, the Soviet Union provided material aid to both the North Korean and Chinese armies. The war would continue for almost two more years with neither side taking significant territory. The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when the armistice agreement was signed. The agreement restored the border between the Koreas near the 38 th Parallel and created the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a 2.5-‐mile (4.0 km)-‐wide fortified buffer zone between the two Korean nations. Minor incidents still continue today. The Second Red Scare While Communism was expanding across the World, the United States entered an era of paranoia known as the Red Scare. Suspicion of Communist influence in

government was pandemic. The accusation of State Department official Alger Hiss of espionage charges (he was convicted of perjury) and the conviction of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg of giving atomic secrets to the Soviets in 1953 helped fuel the fear that communist infiltration of the U.S. was rampant. McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from 1950 to 1956 and characterized by heightened fears of communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents. Originally coined to criticize the anti-‐ communist pursuits of Republican U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, "McCarthyism" soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts. The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries. During the McCarthy era, thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-‐industry panels, committees and agencies. The primary targets of such suspicions were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators and union activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs were often greatly exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment and/or destruction of their careers; some even suffered imprisonment. While there were a few communist operatives in the U.S., most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned, laws that would be declared unconstitutional, dismissals for reasons later declared illegal or actionable, or extra-‐ legal procedures that would come into general disrepute. The most famous examples of McCarthyism include the speeches, investigations, and hearings of Senator McCarthy himself; the Hollywood blacklist, associated with hearings conducted by the House Un-‐American Activities Committee (HUAC); and the various anti-‐communist activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under Director J. Edgar Hoover. McCarthyism was a widespread social and cultural phenomenon that affected all levels of society and was the source of a great deal of debate and conflict in the United States. When McCarthy accused the army leadership of containing communists in 1954, his influence rapidly declined and he was later censured by Congress. The Economy and Culture of Abundance In the 20 th century, the significant improvement of the standard of living of a society, and the consequent emergence of the middle class, broadly applied the term

“conspicuous consumption” to the men, women, and households who possessed the discretionary income that allowed them to practice the patterns of economic consumption—of goods and services—which were motivated by the desire for prestige and the public display of social status, rather than by the intrinsic, practical utility of the goods and the services proper. In the 1920s, economists such as Paul Nystrom proposed that changes in the style of life, made feasible by the economics of the industrial age, had induced to the mass of society a “philosophy of futility” that would increase the consumption of goods and services as a social fashion—an activity done for its own sake. The immediate years unfolding after World War II were generally ones of stability and prosperity for Americans. The nation reconverted its war machine back into a consumer culture almost overnight and found jobs for 12 million returning veterans. Increasing numbers enjoyed high wages, larger houses, better schools, more cars and home comforts like vacuum cleaners, washing machines—which were all made for labor-‐saving and to make housework easier. Inventions familiar in the early 21 st century made their first appearance during this era. The G.I. Bill assisted returning veterans from World War II and Korea with securing finances for education and for purchasing homes. The American economy grew dramatically in the post-‐war period, expanding at a rate of 3.5% per annum between 1945 and 1970. During this period of prosperity, many incomes doubled in a generation, described by economist Frank Levy as “upward mobility on a rocket ship.” The substantial increase in average family income within a generation resulted in millions of office and factory workers being lifted into a growing middle class, enabling them to sustain a standard of living once considered to be reserved for the wealthy. By the end of the Fifties, 87% of all American families owned at least one T.V., 75% owned cars, and 60% owned their homes. By 1960, blue-‐collar workers had become the biggest buyers of many luxury goods and services. In addition, by the early seventies, post-‐World War II American consumers enjoyed higher levels of disposable income than those in any other country. Between 1946 and 1960, the United States witnessed a significant expansion in the consumption of goods and services. GNP rose by 36% and personal consumption expenditures by 42%, cumulative gains which were reflected in the incomes of families and unrelated individuals. More than 21 million housing units were constructed between 1946 and 1960, and in the latter year 52% of consumer units in the metropolitan areas owned their own homes. In 1957, out of all the wired homes throughout the country, 96% had a refrigerator, 87% an electric washer, 81% a television, 67% a vacuum cleaner, 18% a freezer, 12% an electric or gas dryer, and 8% air conditioning. Car ownership also soared, with 72% of consumer units owning an automobile by 1960.

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The period from 1946 to 1960 also witnessed a significant increase in the paid leisure time of working people. The forty-‐hour workweek established by the Fair Labor Standards Act in covered industries became the actual schedule in most workplaces by 1960. Paid vacations also became to be enjoyed by the vast majority of workers. Industries catering to leisure activities blossomed as a result of most Americans enjoying significant paid leisure time by 1960. Educational outlays were also greater than in other countries while a higher proportion of young people were graduating from high schools and universities than elsewhere in the world, as hundreds of new colleges and universities opened every year. At the center of middle-‐class culture in the 1950s was a growing demand for consumer goods, a result of the postwar prosperity, the increase in variety and availability of consumer products, and television advertising. America generated a steadily growing demand for better automobiles, clothing, appliances, family vacations, and higher education. With Detroit turning out automobiles as fast as possible, city dwellers gave up cramped apartments for a suburban life style centered around children and housewives, with the male breadwinner commuting to work. Suburbia encompassed a third of the nation's population by 1960. The growth of suburbs was not only a result of postwar prosperity, but innovations of the single-‐family housing market with low interest rates on 20-‐ and 30-‐year mortgages, and low down payments, especially for veterans. William Levitt began a national trend with his use of mass-‐production techniques to construct a large "Levittown" housing development on Long Island. Meanwhile, the suburban population swelled because of the baby boom. Suburbs provided larger homes for larger families, security from urban living, privacy, and space for consumer goods. The Revival of Domesticity and Religion The Baby Boom The decade following World War II was characterized by growing wealth throughout much of American society. This gave rise to high levels of consumption and a boom in population within the United States. The economic prosperity of the late 1940s and 1950s also led Americans to start families at a younger age as well as to have more children. The U.S. population grew from about 150 million to about 180 million during the 1950s, reaching its peak in 1957. The baby boom, as this birth rate increase was termed, was a product of conservative family values as well as a marked cause for them. The role of women in American society became an issue of particular interest, with marriage and feminine domesticity depicted as the primary goal for the American woman. This revival of domesticity as a social value was accompanied by an intense religious renewal. Religious messages began to infiltrate popular culture as religious leaders became famous faces and numerous

religious organizations were formed. Evangelist such as Billy Graham and Oral Roberts broadcast their message on television and radio. Church growth and attendance were at high levels. Additionally, it was during the 1950s that Congress added the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. A Religious Resurgence In 1950, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA merged a number of interchurch ministries nationwide. In Addition, numerous religious organizations were formed during this time, including Youth for Christ (1943), the National Association of Evangelicals, the American Council of Christian Churches, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (1950), Conservative Baptist Association of America (1947), and Campus Crusade for Christ (1951). In addition, Christianity Today was first published in 1956. 1956 also marked the beginning of Bethany Fellowship, a small press that grew to be a leading evangelical press. Billy Graham And Evangelism William Franklin "Billy" Graham, Jr. (born November 7, 1918) is an American Christian evangelist, ordained as a Southern Baptist minister, who rose to celebrity status in 1949, with the national media backing of William Randolph Hearst and Henry Luce. His sermons were broadcast on radio and television; some are still being re-‐broadcast today. Billy Graham began the trend of national celebrity ministers who broadcast to megachurches via radio and television. Additionally, Graham is notable for having been a spiritual adviser to several United States Presidents; he was particularly close to Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. During the civil rights movement, he began to support integrated seating for his revivals and crusades. The Role of Women in the Household Homemaking is a mainly American term for the management of a home, and is otherwise known as housework, housekeeping or household management; it entails the overseeing of the organizational, financial, day-‐to-‐day operations of a house or estate, and the managing of other domestic concerns. This domestic consumption work creates goods and services within a household, such as meals, childcare, household repairs or the manufacture of clothes and gifts. Common tasks include cleaning, cooking and looking after children. In both the U.S. and Canada, a person in charge of homemaking, who isn't employed outside the home, is often called a "homemaker," a gender-‐neutral term for a housewife or a househusband (although homemakers have traditionally been almost exclusively female). The term "homemaker", however, may also refer to a social worker who manages a household when either the housewife or househusband is incapacitated. Housework is not always a lifetime commitment; many people, for economic or personal reasons, eventually return to the workplace. Prior to the 1960's, homemaking was a decidedly gender-‐specific role. The second wave feminist movement worked to abolish such conventions. Gender roles in

society can rapidly change. According to an article by M.P. Dunleavey, the number of households in which the wife is the sole earner rose from 4.1 percent in 1970 to over 7 percent in 2000. This figure is still rising. Roles in the first half of the 20 th century were fairly systemic. Many mandatory courses existed for youth to learn the skills of homemaking. In high school, courses included cooking, nutrition, home economics, family and consumer science (FACS) and food and cooking hygiene. "Cooking hygiene" may underlie the tradition that a homemaker is portrayed wearing an apron. Most of these courses have been abolished in recent years, and many youths in high school and college youths are more likely to study child development and the management of children's behavior than the skills of homemaking. The rise of suburbs helped create the role of housewife and homemaker for white, middle class women. Similarly, the trend of consumerism during the 1950s offered new technologies that both increased and decreased the daily work of housewives. Examples of new technologies that radically altered the role of the housewife include the washer and drier, vacuum cleaner and lawn mower. Additionally, television advertisements and programming on shows such as The Donna Reed Show played a major role in inventing the image of the ideal homemaker. The Eisenhower Presidency The presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-‐61) followed double defeats of Democrat Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 and 1956 elections. Ike, as Eisenhower was popularly known, ended the Korean War and presided over eight years of relative peace and moderate economic growth. Eisenhower was a likable World War II hero who generally avoided controversy and strived for social harmony. His main legacy is the Interstate Highway System, a system of over 40,000 miles of superhighways connecting major urban centers. Election 1952 Eisenhower had been a favorite of the New Dealers during the war, especially Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins. Rejecting Democratic efforts to nominate him in 1948 and 1952, Eisenhower instead chose to run for the Republican Party nomination in 1952. His goal was to prevent Robert Taft's non-‐interventionism— such as opposition to NATO—from becoming public policy. Presidency 1953–1961 Eisenhower created the positions of White House Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor. He expanded the role of the National Security Council and was the first president to conduct televised press conferences. Reporters of that time have said that Eisenhower was the first president to employ the "non-‐answer" during these events. "No President and White House of my acquaintance ever gave out at once so much and so little," noted journalist Clark Mollenhoff of Eisenhower's

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simultaneous decisions to televise press conferences and not answer questions as asked. Foreign Affairs Eisenhower's presidency was dominated by the Cold War, the prolonged confrontation with the Soviet Union, which had begun during Truman's term of office. When Joseph Stalin died, Eisenhower sought to extend an olive branch to the new Soviet regime in his "Chance for Peace," speech but continued turmoil in Moscow prevented a meaningful response and the Cold War deepened. During his campaign, Eisenhower had promised to end the stalemated Korean War. This promise was fulfilled on July 27, 1953 by the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement. Defense treaties with South Korea and the Republic of China were signed, and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) alliance was formed, in an effort to halt the spread of Communism in Asia. In the newly independent but chaotic Republic of Congo, the Soviet Union and the KGB had intervened in favor of popularly elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. Anti-‐Communism had become an issue and the U.S. and CIA gave weapons and covert support to pro-‐Western and Democratic CIA assets Joseph Kasavubu and his subordinate, Colonel Joseph Mobutu. The initial struggle came to a close in December 1960, after Kasavubu and Mobutu overthrew Lumumba and proceeded to turn the country (later known as Zaire) into an autocracy, which was unstable long after the end of Eisenhower's term. Eisenhower also increased U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, a process which had begun under his predecessor Truman. In 1954, he sent his Director of the C.I.A., Allen Welsh Dulles, to Geneva as a delegate to the Geneva Conference, which ended the First Indochina War and temporarily partitioned Vietnam into a Communist northern half (under Ho Chi Minh) and a non-‐Communist southern half (under Ngo Dinh Diem). The U.S. strongly rejected the Geneva Agreement. In February 1955, Eisenhower dispatched the first American soldiers to Vietnam as military advisors to Diem's army. After Diem announced the formation of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, commonly known as South Vietnam) in October, Eisenhower immediately recognized the new state and offered military, economic, and technical assistance. The Vietnam Conflict will be covered in more detail in the next module. In 1956, Eisenhower warned Britain repeatedly not to use force to regain control of the Suez Canal, which Egypt had nationalized. Regardless, Britain, France, and Israel made war on Egypt and seized the canal. He used the economic power of the U.S. to force his European allies to back down and withdraw from Egypt. It marked the end of British imperial dominance in the Middle East and opened the way for greater American involvement in the region. During his second term he became increasingly involved in Middle Eastern affairs, sending troops to Lebanon in 1958 and

promoting the creation of the Baghdad Pact between Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran, as well as Britain. Despite his military background and actions during the Cold War, President Eisenhower warned of the potential dangers of the “Military-‐Industrial Complex” before he left office. This is the relationship between government spending and military buildup. There is a danger that the economy would become too dependent on industry relating to military buildup and that these industries could gain too much political power. Space Race Americans were astonished when Soviets were the first to launch a satellite (Sputnik) into space. Eisenhower came under heavy criticism, and his administration responded to this crisis with many strategic initiatives, including the creation of NASA in 1958 and a speeding up of the American space program. Eisenhower started NASA's human spaceflight program and funded visionary projects such as Saturn and the F-‐1 rocket engine, which were necessary for success in the subsequent administrations' effort to win the "Space Race." Here are some other events in the Space Race during the Eisenhower administration and beyond: Less than a year after the Sputnik launch, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA). The act was a four-‐year program that poured billions of dollars into the U.S. education system. In 1953, the government spent $153 million, and colleges took $10 million of that funding. However, by 1960 the combined funding grew almost sixfold because of the NDEA. After the initial public shock, the Space Race began, leading to the first human launched into space, Project Apollo, and the first manned moon landing in 1969. Sputnik spurred a series of U.S. initiatives, many initiated by the Department of Defense: • Within two days, calculation of the Sputnik orbit (joint work by UIUC Astronomy Dept. and Digital Computer Lab). • Increased emphasis on the Navy's existing Project Vanguard to launch an American satellite into orbit, and a revival of the Army's Explorer program that preceded Vanguard in launching the first American satellite into orbit on January 31, 1958. • By February 1958, the political and defense communities had recognized the need for a high-‐level Department of Defense organization to execute R&D projects and created the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which later became the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA. • On July 29, 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA. • Education programs were initiated to foster a new generation of engineers. • Increased support for scientific research. For 1959, Congress increased the National Science Foundation (NSF) appropriation to $134 million, almost

$100 million higher than the year before. By 1968, the NSF budget would stand at nearly $500 million. • The Polaris missile program. • Project management as an area of inquiry and an object of much scrutiny, leading up to the modern concept of project management and standardized project models such as the DoD Program Evaluation and Review Technique, PERT, invented for Polaris. • The decision by President John F. Kennedy, who campaigned in 1960 on closing the "missile gap", to deploy 1,000 Minuteman missiles, far more ICBMs than the Soviets had at the time. • U.S. moon landing in 1969 Domestic Affairs Eisenhower was a moderate conservative whose policy views were close to Taft. They agreed that a free enterprise economy should run itself. He did not attempt to roll back the New Deal—he expanded Social Security. His major project was building the Interstate Highway System using federal gasoline taxes. While his 1952 landslide victory gave the Republicans control of both houses of the Congress, Eisenhower believed that taxes could not be cut until the budget was balanced. On June 17, 1954, Eisenhower launched Operation Wetback in response to increasing illegal immigration to the United States. As many as three million illegal immigrants had crossed the U.S. Mexican border to work in California, Arizona, Texas, and other states. Eisenhower opposed this movement, believing that it lowered the wages of American workers and led to corruption. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) sent about 80,000 immigrants back to Mexico. Although generally cautious in the area of Civil Rights, in 1957, Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas after Governor Orval Faubus attempted to defy a federal court order calling for desegregation of Little Rock public schools. The soldiers escorted nine African-‐American students, who became known as the Little Rock Nine, to Little Rock Central High School. He wrote legislation that would create a Civil Rights Commission in the executive branch and a civil rights department in the Justice Department. Eisenhower retained his popularity throughout his presidency. In 1956, he was reelected by an even wider margin than in 1952, again defeating Stevenson, and carrying such traditionally Democratic states (at the time) as Texas and Tennessee. The 1960 Election In the 1960 election, the incumbent president, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, had already served two terms and thus was not eligible to run again. The Republican Party nominated Richard Nixon, Eisenhower's Vice-‐President, while the Democrats

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nominated John F. Kennedy, a Senator from Massachusetts. Kennedy was elected in the closest election since 1916. The Debates The key turning point of the campaign were the four Kennedy-‐Nixon debates. These were the first presidential debates held on television, and attracted enormous publicity. In the first debate, Nixon looked pale, sickly, underweight, and tired as a result of his recent hospital stay. Kennedy, by contrast, appeared tanned, confident, and relaxed during the debate. An estimated 70 million viewers watched the first debate. People who watched the debate on television overwhelmingly believed Kennedy had won, while radio listeners (a smaller audience) believed Nixon had won. After it had ended, polls showed Kennedy moving into a slight lead over Nixon. For the remaining three debates, Nixon appeared more forceful than his initial appearance. However, up to 20 million fewer viewers watched the three remaining debates. Kennedy's Catholicism A key factor that hurt John F. Kennedy in his campaign was the widespread prejudice against his Roman Catholic religion. The religious issue was so significant that Kennedy made a speech, promising to respect the separation of church and state and not to allow Catholic officials to dictate public policy to him. Results of the Election The election on November 8, 1960, remains one of the most famous election nights in American history. In the national popular vote, Kennedy beat Nixon by just one tenth of one percentage point (0.1%)—the closest popular-‐vote margin of the 20 th century. In the Electoral College, Kennedy's victory was larger, as he took 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219 (269 were needed to win). Post-‐Election Controversy Many Republicans, including Nixon and Eisenhower, believed that Kennedy had benefited from vote fraud, especially in Texas, where Kennedy's running mate Lyndon B. Johnson was Senator, and Illinois. Nixon's campaign staff urged him to pursue recounts and challenge the validity of Kennedy's victory in several states. However, in a speech three days after the election, Nixon stated that he would not contest the election. The Kennedy Presidency John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35 th President on January 20, 1961. In his inaugural address, he spoke of the need for all Americans to "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." He called upon the nations of the world to join fight what he called the "common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself." In closing, he expanded on his desire for

greater internationalism: "Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you." The address reflected Kennedy's confidence that his administration would chart a historically significant course in both domestic policy and foreign affairs. The contrast between this optimistic vision and the pressures of managing daily political realities at home and abroad would be one of the main tensions running through the early years of his administration. Despite the challenges he faced while in office, Kennedy consistently ranks high in public opinion ratings of U.S. presidents. He was assassinated before the end of his term on November 22, 1963 while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy and foreign policy Kennedy's foreign policy was dominated by American confrontations with the Soviet Union, manifested by proxy wars in the early stage of the Cold War. The Kennedy administration's foreign policy was characterized by a policy of containment. Kennedy's foreign policy was also dominated by a new support for third world countries' and their nationalist movements. In the decades following World War II, decolonization was occurring rapidly. The Europe powers were granting independence to their colonies, particularly in Asia and Africa. In the Cold War, both the U.S. and Soviet Union competed intensely for influence in these developing nations. During the Kennedy administration, the world also came to the brink of nuclear war with the Cuban Missile Crisis. As one of his first presidential acts, Kennedy asked Congress to create the Peace Corps. Through this program, still in existence today, Americans volunteer to help underdeveloped nations in areas such as education, farming, health care, and construction. The organization grew to 5,000 members by March 1963 and 10,000 the following year. Since 1961, over 200,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps, serving in 139 countries. Kennedy and domestic policy Kennedy called his domestic program the "New Frontier." It ambitiously promised federal funding for education, medical care for the elderly, economic aid to rural regions, and government intervention to halt the recession. In his 1963 State of the Union address, he proposed substantial tax reform and a reduction in income tax rates. Congress passed few of Kennedy's major programs during his lifetime, but did vote them through in 1964–65 under his successor Johnson. Kennedy ended a period of tight fiscal policies, loosening monetary policy to keep interest rates down and encourage economic growth. The economy, which had been through two recessions in three years and was currently in a recession when Kennedy took office, turned around and prospered. GDP expanded, inflation remained steady, unemployment eased, industrial production rose, and motor vehicle sales rose.

Kennedy and Civil Rights John F. Kennedy initially proposed an overhaul of American immigration policy that later became the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. It dramatically shifted the source of immigration from Northern and Western European countries towards immigration from Latin America and Asia, and also shifted the emphasized family reunification. Kennedy wanted to dismantle the selection of immigrants based on country of origin and saw this as an extension of his civil rights policies. Kennedy supported African-‐American civil rights (especially later in his presidency) as well as the rights of other marginalized groups, such as women. Kennedy signed the executive order creating the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women on December 14, 1961. Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt led the commission. On June 10, 1963, Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a federal law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. Kennedy and the space program Kennedy also saw the expansion of the U.S. space program. On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space, which reinforced American fears about being left behind in a technological competition with the Soviet Union. Kennedy wanted the U.S. to take the lead in the Space Race for reasons of strategy and prestige. On November 21, 1962, in a cabinet meeting with NASA administrator James E. Webb and other officials, Kennedy explained that the moon was important for reasons of international prestige, and that the expense was justified. Vice-‐President Johnson assured him that lessons learned from the space program had military value as well, and so the space program under Kennedy began. Costs for the Apollo program were expected to reach $40 billion. On July 20, 1969, almost six years after Kennedy's death, Apollo 11 landed the first manned spacecraft on the Moon. The Johnson Presidency Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36 th President of the United States, serving from 1963–1969. Johnson had served as Vice President in the Kennedy administration and assumed the presidency upon Kennedy's death on November 22nd, 1963. Johnson was reelected in a landslide in 1964 but did not seek reelection in 1968 on account of his declining popularity. Johnson was renowned for his domineering personality, and, relationally, his great skill in persuading congressmen and other politicians to support him. Johnson accomplished an ambitious domestic agenda, enacting the "Great Society" and "War on Poverty," (which will be examined in more detail in the discussion for this module) a collection of programs related to civil rights, economic opportunity, education, healthcare, environmental protection, and public broadcasting. Historians argue that the Great Society and War on Poverty mark the peak of liberal policy in the United States, the culmination of the New Deal era.

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Johnson is rated highly by many historians because of his success enacting domestic policies. Johnson escalated American involvement in the Vietnam War. Under Johnson, American troop presence went from 16,000 American advisors/soldiers in 1963 to 550,000 combat troops in early 1968. American casualties soared during this time. The war stimulated a large, angry antiwar movement based especially on university campuses in the U.S. and abroad. At the same time, race riots broke out in many American cities, beginning in 1965. These riots, combined with rising crime rates, sapped support for Johnson's liberal civil rights and anti-‐poverty policies and strengthened right-‐wing calls for "law and order." The Democratic Party split into four factions, and after a poor performance in the 1968 New Hampshire primary, Johnson ended his bid for reelection. Republican Richard Nixon was elected to succeed him. Republicans would dominate the presidency, winning five out of the next six presidential elections, until the election of Bill Clinton in 1992. LBJ'S INAUGURATION Johnson was sworn in as President on Air Force One at Love Field Airport in Dallas on November 22, 1963, two hours and eight minutes after President Kennedy was assassinated in Dealey Plaza in Dallas. He was sworn in by Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes, a family friend, making him the first President sworn in by a woman. He is also the only President to have been sworn in on Texas soil. Johnson did not swear on a Bible, as there were none on Air Force One; a Roman Catholic missal was found in Kennedy's desk and was used for the swearing-‐in ceremony. Johnson being sworn in as president has become the most famous photo ever taken aboard a presidential aircraft. In the days following the assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson made an address to Congress: "No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the Civil Rights Bill for which he fought so long." The wave of national grief following the assassination gave enormous momentum to Johnson's promise to carry out Kennedy's programs. Johnson created a panel headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, known as the Warren Commission, to investigate Kennedy's assassination. The commission conducted hearings and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination. Not everyone agreed with the Warren Commission, and numerous public and private investigations continued for decades after Johnson left office. The Kennedy assassination is still the subject of many conspiracy theories to this day. The Immigration Act of 1965 Johnson supported a law that would reform the immigration laws of the United States. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (also known as the Hart-‐Celler Act) changed the nation's laws regulating immigration. The act had a profound and long-‐term affect on immigration into the United States and, thus, on American

demographics. The act was co-‐sponsored by Representative Emanuel Celler of New York and Senator Philip Hart of Michigan and was strongly supported by United States Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. The Hart-‐Celler Act abolished the National Origins Formula, which had been in place since the Immigration Act of 1924. The National Origins Formula had set immigration quotas for specific countries, effectively giving preference to Northern and Western Europe, over Eastern Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. This national origins quota system was viewed as an embarrassment by, among others, President John F. Kennedy, who called it "nearly intolerable." Many argued that the unequal policy hampered American attempts to compete ideologically with the Soviet Union. The National Origins Formula was replaced with a preference system based on immigrants' skills and family relationships with U.S. citizens or residents. Numerical restrictions on visas were set at 170,000 per year, per-‐country-‐of-‐origin, not including immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, or "special immigrants" (including those born in "independent" nations in the Western Hemisphere; former citizens; ministers; employees of the U.S. government abroad). President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill at the foot of the Statue of Liberty as a symbolic gesture. The majority of the American people were opposed to the Immigration and Nationality Act. To convince people of the legislation’s merits, the act’s proponents asserted that the act would not significantly influence American culture. President Johnson minimized the act’s significance, calling it “not revolutionary.” Secretary of State Dean Rusk estimated that only a few thousand Indian immigrants would enter the country over the next five years and other politicians, including Edward Kennedy, hastened to reassure the public that the demographic mix would not be affected. In fact, these assertions would prove highly inaccurate. Nevertheless, the House of Representatives voted 326 to 70 (82.5%) in favor of the act, while the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 76 to 18. The act had bi-‐partisan support in the senate, with 52 of 67 Democrats and 24 of 28 Republicans voting "yes." Most of the "no" votes were from the southern belt, then strongly Democratic. On October 3, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the legislation into law, saying "This [old] system violates the basic principle of American democracy, the principle that values and rewards each man on the basis of his merit as a man. It has been un-‐American in the highest sense, because it has been untrue to the faith that brought thousands to these shores even before we were a country." The Immigration and Nationality Act did change American demographics, leading to increases in immigration from Mediterranean Europe, Latin America, and Asia. By the 1990s, America's population growth was more than one-‐third driven by legal immigration, as opposed to one-‐tenth before the act. Ethnic and racial minorities, as defined by the census bureau, rose from 25% in 1990 to 30% in 2000. Per the 2000

census, roughly 11.1% of Americans were foreign-‐born, a major increase from the low of 4.7% in 1970. One-‐third of the foreign-‐born were from Latin America and one-‐fourth from Asia. As a result of these changes in legal immigration among other factors, America is expected to have less than 50% whites in the total population by the year 2042. Some argue that the act also increased illegal immigration from Latin America, and especially from Mexico, because the unlimited legal "bracero" system previously in-‐place was cut. The waves of immigration enabled by the Immigration and Nationality Act carry benefits and problems. Immigrants have made significant contributions to American society, for example, helping to stimulate the Sunbelt boom. The number of immigrant groups with above-‐average socioeconomic status is a testament to the ability of immigrants to make the most of opportunities to contribute to American society. However, as it has many other times in American history, the arrival of new groups heightens anxieties about cultural change, raises questions of identity, and causes conflicts of interest. Thus, the demographic change in America creates cultural and political problems. Some critics of immigration argue that immigrants fail to assimilate into the American melting pot; others defend this phenomenon as multiculturalism, the idea that groups should retain their distinctive identities and pursue political representation as groups. Other debates focus on the economic impact of immigration, the impact of illegal immigration, an d the role of languages other than English in public life.

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