The Appeal of McCarthyismThe Appeal of McCarthyism

Suggested US foreign policy failures (“Who Lost China?”) were not the fault of wrongheaded policies, but rather because of spies in the State DepartmentAllowed Americans to ignore the reality that many former colonial nations did not trust the US or Europe (or capitalism), and thus were tempted by the promises of Communism

To understand this reality, Americans would have had to grapple with the uncomfortable truth that their nation and allies had not always stood on the side of freedom, democracy and self-determination

Appealed to the Manichean, simple-minded view of the world as a struggle between good and evil, lightness and darkness

Opposite of the complex geopolitical and historically grounded understanding and approach Kennan argued for

America’s Permanent Global America’s Permanent Global MilitaryMilitary

Responding to charges of being soft on communism, Republican attacks, and his own ideology, Truman instituted massive permanent military build upArmy increased by 50%, air groups doubledDefense spending quadruples: $95 million in 1948 to $408 million in 1952

In part because of Korean War But remains at more than $300 million throughout the decade

Begins constructing American military bases around the globe: Rearm Western Germany and station US troops Japanese allowed defensive rearmament Secure new bases in exchange for economic support in nations of suspect

democratic credentials: Morocco, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and fascist SpainIncrease aid to other western powers supposedly fighting communism around the globe:

Most notably, support French attempts to reassert colonial power in Indochina—better know today as Vietnam

Dwight D. (Ike) Eisenhower, former commanding general of the allied forces in the European theater

John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower’s Secretary of State and advocate of “rollback” and “liberation”

Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961) Moderate, even

“liberal,” Republican Despises the lying

tactics of the demagogic McCarthy, but does little to try and stop his reign of terror

Stalin’s funeral in Red Square, March 1953

Stalin Finally DIES!!!

September, 1959, edition of Time magazine, featuring a smiling Nikita Khrushchev looming over symbols of the “American Way of Life”

Kim Il Sung’s bizarre and mysterious son, who took power in North Korea after his father’s death in 1994

French Colonial Indochina, including the modern-day nations of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos

Ho Chi Minh with American, Allied, and Vietnamese backers, 1945

Ho Chi Minh proclaiming Vietnamese independence in 1945

Divided Vietnam

Ngo Dinh Diem meeting with President Eisenhower and Sec. State John Foster Dulles

Later photo of a typically armed and dressed Viet Cong soldier in an underground bunker and tunnel system

Satellite game cards, c. 1959--receive the Sputnik card and you lose two turns in the “Space Race”; a model of the real thing on right

Francis Gary Powers with his U-2 spy plane

Image of Explorer I and the early logo for the National Air and Space Administration

Eisenhower at HomeEisenhower at HomeDomestically, Eisenhower took a very moderate approach

Disliked excessively big government, but not ideologically opposed to every element of the New Deal

Supported Social Security, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage A moderate or even “liberal” Republican

Presidency did not mark a broad shift away from New Deal liberalism Democrats returned to domination in Congress after 1954

Although some minor economic downturns, by and large the economy thrived during the 1950s

Pent-up consumer demand from WWII Lack of competitors due to the destruction of Europe in WWII Government programs like the GI Bill that produced a new highly educated work

force Government investment in science and technology: Military Keynesianism

But given his dislike of using the federal government to achieve social goals, Eisenhower was reluctant to take a strong role in the emerging Civil Rights movement

Truman arrives to address the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1947, the first US president to do so

A racially integrated Army unit fighting in Korea

Segregated drinking water in Georgia, c. 1953

Linda Brown, the little girl in Topeka, Kansas, whose father filed suit after the school board forced her to go to a school more than a mile from her home when an all-white school was seven blocks away

Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court which ruled in May of 1954 that “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” beginning the end of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson precedent

Emmett Till, a 14-year old Chicago boy who dared to whistle at a white woman

Emmett Till’s savagely beaten body—the price a black boy paid for whistling at a white women in the supposedly progressive America of the

1950s

Rosa Parks being arrested

Empty busses during the Montgomery Bus boycott

Section from the Montgomery municipal code requiring city

busses to segregate

Montgomery, Alabama, Klan members warn of the grave dangers of letting black people sit next to white people on busses

Montgomery Bus BoycottMontgomery Bus Boycott

Demonstrated blacks deeply desired freedom and equality and were willing to personally sacrifice to achieve it

Demonstrated power of organizing, civil protests, and the strength in numbers Laughed at the Klan rather than feared them

Brought to national prominence a new leader for black civil rights

Martin Luther King speaking at bus boycott rally, 1956

The 26-year old Reverend Martin Luther King, arrested during the Montgomery Bus Boycott

•Decidedly non-radical, reasonable leader, but passionate and inspiring

•Doctorate from Boston University in theology

•Believed civil rights would be won through Christian love and non-violent resistance

"If we are arrested every day, if we are exploited every day, if we are trampled every day, don't ever let anyone pull you so low as to hate them. We must use the weapon of love. We must have compassion and understanding for those who hate us. We must realize so many people are taught to hate us that they are not totally responsible for their hate."

--Martin Luther King

Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, who rejected the Supreme Court’s ruling that all U.S. schools must integrate

Soldiers escorting the Little Rock Nine to Central High School

Questions?Questions?