America, From Truman to Johnson

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America, From Truman to Johnson

• Kevin J. Benoy

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Wars Legacy

• Before WW2 the USA was a major economic power,
  but little else.
• Its army in the 1930s was on a par with Portugal.
• All this changed as a result of the war.

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Wars Legacy

• Americas resources and industrial power along
  with its safe distance from fighting made this
  transformation possible.
• America came to be known as the arsenal of
  democracy, producing 12,000 ships, 100,000 tanks
  and nearly 300,000 aircraft during the war.
• 400 billion was spent on the war effort more
  than the total of all of the other allies put
  together.
• Most of this spending happened within the US
  domestic economic, bringing an end to the long
  depression.

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Trumans America

• Vice President under Roosevelt, Truman was
  largely unknown outside America.
• By the time his presidency ended, he had
  transformed American foreign policy profoundly.

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Trumans America

• Domestically, his main concern was to continue
  where Roosevelt left off with his New Deal.
• Rural poverty was still significant.
• It was also great in non-white urban areas.

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Trumans America

• In September 1945, Truman initiated a 21 point
  programme focussing on extending social security
  benefits and providing affordable housing.
• In 1946 he passed an employment act.

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Trumans America

• He hoped to achieve much with his Fair Deal
  Programme, but it was sabotaged by the
  Republican-controlled Congress.
• A National health system, slum clearance, a
  national old age pension system and child and
  maternity benefits were all blocked.

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Trumans America

• Worse, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act in
  1947.
• It banned the closed shop for unions.
• It enforced a 60 day cooling off period before
  any strikes could take place.
• Clearly it tipped labour relations strongly in
  favour of management. Truman tried to veto it,
  but Congress, by a 2/3 vote, rejected his veto.

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Trumans America

• Despite his domestic failures, Truman managed
  re-election in 1948 despite having to run
  against renegade Southern Democrats Dixiecrats
  who thought him too pro-Negro for their liking.

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Trumans America

• Congressional elections also saw Democrats win.
• Part of the Fair Deal could now be enacted.
• The minimum wage rose from 40 cents to 75 cents
  an hour.
• Social Security benefits were extended.
• Desegregation of the army began.
• On the other hand, he still could not win support
  for a health scheme or for guaranteeing civil
  rights for negroes.

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Trumans Foreign Policy

• Opposition to Communist expansion was a
  cornerstone to Trumans foreign policy.
• Communist expansion into China came despite huge
  amounts of money being poured into the country.
• Hard conditions in Europe led to unprecedented
  levels of support for Western European Communist
  parties especially in Italy and France.

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Trumans Foreign Policy

• To keep Europe from turning Left, Truman
  suggested sending massive American aid in what
  came to be known as the Marshall Plan.
• This would bring prosperity and a market for
  American goods.
• If Soviet satellites took the offer, it would
  give influence behind the Iron Curtain.
• In the end, Stalin forbade E. Bloc countries
  taking the aid. Truman still won a huge
  propaganda victory though he had much to do to
  convince American tax-payers to fund the project.

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McCarthyism

• Trumans efforts to win support for his foreign
  policy of opposing Communism everywhere was
  expensive.
• The administration needed to whip up support and
  in doing so created a monster.

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McCarthyism

• From 1948 to 1954 a Republican Senator from
  Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, carried Trumans
  anti-communist rhetoric much further still.
• Reasonable Americans and the administration found
  McCarthys witch hunt tactics repugnant.
• Few spoke out against him, fearing they would be
  accused of being communist themselves.

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McCarthyism

• The Republican Party leadership cynically
  remained silent.
• The Democrats were pushed on the defensive as
  accusations flew that Truman was soft on
  communism.

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McCarthyism

• Anyone who had once had left-wing beliefs feared
  being hauled before the House Committee on
  Un-American Activity to defend themselves.

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McCarthyism

• 9,500 Civil Servants were fired and 15,000 more
  resigned in an atmosphere of fear and
  persecution.
• 600 teachers lost their jobs.
• Actors were blacklisted including Charlie
  Chaplin who never worked in America again.

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McCarthyism

• The McCarran Act was passed in 1950, forcing
  suspected communist organizations to send a list
  of members to the government.
• As late as the 1980s, this was used to force
  university student groups to submit names to the
  FBI of students who watched anti-nuclear war film
  If You Love This Planet in campus theaters.
• In 1954 the US Communist Party was banned and
  membership criminalized.

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McCarthyism

• Once their own president was in the White House,
  McCarthys usefulness waned.
• A combination of Supreme Court decisions and
  popular resentment of McCarthys tactics brought
  an end to the witch hunts.
• Arthur Millers 1952 play The Crucible was a
  withering attack on McCarthyism.

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Ordinary Life

• For those not targeted and white the late
  1940s and early 1950s were a period of
  prosperity.
• The standard of living rose and a consumer
  society emerged.
• Planned obsolescence entered the marketplace.
  Everything seemed designed to be replaced in the
  near future cars, clothes and even buildings.

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Suburbia

• The Middle class abandoned city centers and took
  up residence in the exploding suburban housing
  developments.
• City centers became the decaying preserve of the
  urban poor.

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Eisenhowers America

• Eisenhower won an easy victory in 1952.
• A popular war hero, he won as much because of his
  personal popularity as for his conservative
  policies.
• Prosperity lessened the desire of Americans to
  worry about welfare and reform. He was lucky to
  preside over a period of continued growth.

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Eisenhowers America

• His presidency was not marked by many remarkable
  domestic successes
• After sputnik was launched, more funding was
  given to science and mathematics education to
  help America catch up.
• Some help was provided for seniors to help them
  pay medical bills.
• Farmers were paid to produce less to increase
  farm prices and incomes (prices rose, but incomes
  did not).
• The minimum wage rose to 1 an hour.

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Civil Rights

• Eisenhower did more to improve civil rights for
  blacks.
• He made it easier for them to vote.
• He ensured that Supreme Court decisions were
  enforced including a 1954 ruling that separate
  schools for blacks and whites were illegal and a
  1955 ruling ordering desegregation of all schools.

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Civil Rights

• When the Governor of Arkansas refused to allow 9
  black teenagers into Little Rock Central High
  School, Eisenhower dispatched 1,000 airborne
  troops to the town to force the issue.

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Civil Rights

• Such moves were not popular in the South, where
  segregation was deeply engrained.
• Through much of the region, little changed.
• As late as 1961, no black children attended white
  schools in Mississippi, Alabama or South
  Carolina.
• Only 9 did so in Georgia.

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Civil Rights

• Negroes took matters into their own hands.
• Bus boycotts protested the policy of insisting
  blacks give up seats to whites on busses the
  law in Montgomery, Alabama.

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Civil Rights

• Demonstrations took place outside whites-only
  cafes, hotels, libraries and drug stores.
• Modelling its activities on the ideas of Gandhi
  in India, the Civil Rights Movement, led by
  Martin Luther King Jr. And others, made Americans
  aware of the problems faced by blacks and the
  brutality of whites in combating them.

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Eisenhowers Foreign Policy

• Eisenhower appointed people to jobs and left them
  to get on with it.
• Foreign policy was given to John Foster Dulles, a
  Secretary of State who wielded unprecedented
  power.
• Pursuing brinksmanship, Dulles responded to all
  Russian moves with a display of force.

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The Eisenhower Doctrine

• In 1957 the President promised aid to Middle
  Eastern countries who seemed threatened by the
  Soviet Union.
• This offer was later extended and a series of
  alliances were set up around the world as
  regional versions of the NATO alliance.
• CENTO formed in the Middle East and SEATO in
  South East Asia.
• Eisenhower also began preliminary planning for an
  operation against Cuba the Bay of Pigs invasion.

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The Kennedy Administration

• John F. Kennedy was the first American politician
  to realize the importance of television and act
  upon it.
• Many observers say it resulted in his narrow 1960
  election win over Richard Nixon.
• At 43, Kennedy was the youngest president in
  American history and a Roman Catholic.

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The Kennedy Administration

• His social policies were announced with great
  fanfare evoking the spirit of the pioneering
  era in what he called his New Frontier Policy.
• His goals were a fairer, freer and more equal
  society.

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The Kennedy Administration

• To combat the recession, which struck in 1959 he
  increased public work spending and encouraged
  credit buying by the public.
• In 1962 he sent in Federal troops to enforce
  desegregation at the universities of Mississippi
  and Alabama.

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Kennedys Foreign Policy

• Foreign policy goals and domestic policy echoed
  similar sentiments.
• The Peace Corps was formed in 1961, sending
  skilled volunteers to underdeveloped countries
  (building goodwill toward America while helping
  3rd world people).
• The Alliance for Progress was created to help
  Latin American countries develop.

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Kennedys Foreign Policy

• A common thread ran through all of these.
• Kennedy was a confirmed Liberal in the Wilsonian
  tradition.
• Capitalist prosperity would prevent communist
  growth and America, as the leading capitalist
  country, had to act.

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Kennedys Foreign Policy

• Under Kennedy, the Eisenhower formulated Bay of
  Pigs invasion of Cuba took place.
• Kennedy was prepared to risk nuclear war during
  the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• American involvement in Vietnam was stepped up.

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Kennedys Death

• Kennedy was enormously popular with many
  Americans (and foreigners), but was hugely
  resented by others.
• His handling of domestic and foreign affairs
  created powerful enemies.
• In 1963, while being driven in a convertible
  through the streets of Dallas, Kennedy was shot
  dead.
• On November 22, 1963, the President died and was
  succeeded by his vice president, Lyndon Baines
  Johnson.

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The Johnson Administration

• Johnsons legacy is mixed.
• On the one hand he did much to improve the
  domestic situation.
• On he other, he led America deeper and deeper
  into the Vietnam quagmire.

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LBJs Domestic Agenda

• Johnson furthered Kennedys social agenda in what
  he called his Great Society programme.
• He pushed Kennedys Civil Rights Act through
  Congress in 1964 outlawing discrimination in
  housing jobs and education.

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LBJs Domestic Agenda

• The 1965 Public Voting Act enfranchised more
  black voters.
• Job opportunities were improved for
  underprivileged black youths through the Equal
  Opportunities Act and the founding of the Job
  Corps.

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LBJs Domestic Agenda

• The Development Act of 1966 sought to revitalize
  cities by funding rebuilding of infrastructure.
• More assistance went to the old through Medicare
  and to the poor through Medicaid.
• Further legislation to grant greater rights to
  trade unions and to liberalize immigration policy
  failed when Congress refused to pass them.

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Johnsons Problems

• Americas financial position suffered enormously
  under Johnson as his domestic agenda was pursued
  at the same time as the horribly expensive
  Vietnam War.
• Guns and Butter were, together, unaffordable.

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Johnsons Problems

• Johnson did not start American involvement in
  Vietnam. He inherited the commitment from
  previous presidents.
• Under his leadership there was a marked jump,
  both qualitatively and quantitatively, in
  American involvement.
• Soon half a million American soldiers were
  bolstering a series of weak right-wing regimes.

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Johnsons Problems

• Despite the scale of Americas efforts on land,
  sea and in the air, the war could not be won.
• The lesson that a great power cannot win a
  guerilla struggle against popular nationalist
  movements was learned at great cost though not
  by this president, but his successor.

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The 1968 Election

• The Vietnam war divided Americans.
• Opposition to the war was particularly strong
  among the young especially the educated young.
• The strain on the President was huge and with an
  election coming, LBJ decided not to run in 1968.

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The 1968 Election

• Even with Johnson on the sideline, the Democrats
  were wounded beyond repair.
• Attacked by Republicans on the Right, they were
  also lambasted by opponents of the war on the
  Left.
• At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago
  street violence ruined the event as the world
  watched police launch baton charges into
  demonstrators.
• Republican candidate Richard Nixon won the
  election handily.

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finis