AIH3H - Test 8

1.  How did Eisenhower's "leadership style" help him to get elected President in 1952 and how did his Vice-Presidential running mate impact the election? 855-856

Eisenhower knew that his greatest “asset” was the “affection and respect” of United States citizens. Eisenhower cultivated this leadership style by purposely projecting an image of sincerity, fairness and optimism which he had honed during his days as a military commander. Striking a grandfatherly and nonpartisan pose, Eisenhower let his Vice-Presidential running mate Richard Nixon combat the politically difficult questions of the day that included charges of corruption, softness on Communism and weakness on resolving the Korean conflict. 

2.  Describe how the "Jim Crow Laws" impacted some 10 million Southern blacks in the 1950's and how did international perceptions contribute to the undermining of America's Cold War efforts?  856-857

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the South.  Southern blacks dealt with a bizarre array of separate social arrangements that kept them insulated from whites, economically inferior and politically powerless. They were forced to attend segregated schools, use separate public toilets, drinking fountains, restaurants and waiting rooms.  Public transportation had “whites only” and “colored only” seating.  Only 20% of southern blacks were registered to vote.  Where Jim Crow laws failed white vigilante violence did the job. Segregation tarnished America’s international image by raising doubts about America’s reputation as the beacon of freedom against Soviet communism and contributed to the undermining of America’s Cold War efforts.

3.  Why was Rosa Parks arrested in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 and what resulted from her arrest? 857

In December, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American, boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama and took a seat in the “whites only” section and refused to give it up.  She was arrested for violating the city’s Jim Crow statutes and her arrest sparked a black boycott of city buses that lasted for 381 days, cost the bus company 65% of its normal income and ended when the Warren Court decreed that the segregation of buses should end.

4.  What factors thrust Martin Luther King into the "black revolution" in the South? 858

Martin Luther King Jr. began his leadership in the civil rights movement by organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  For his efforts the Reverend Martin Luther King’s church was machine-gunned and attacks like these simply hardened his resolve to fight on.  King had been raised in a prosperous Atlanta, GA family and had been sheltered from the worst cruelties of segregation.  But his oratorical skill, strategic savvy, mastery of biblical and constitutional conceptions of justice, and devotion to the nonviolent principles of India’s Mohandas Gandhi all thrust him to the forefront of the black revolution at a time when it began to pulse across both the South and the nation.

5.  How did Chief Justice Earl Warren succeed in advancing desegregation in the U.S. and why was this not accomplished by either the Truman or Eisenhower administrations? 858

Earl Warren, a former California governor, became the Supreme Court Justice under the Eisenhower Administration in 1953 and his Court presided over a period which was in great social flux.   The Warren Court fostered sweeping changes in the application of the U.S. Constitution as it applied to minorities and promoted a radically equal society in which civil liberties were secured and preserved for all Americans regardless of race.  In the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas the unanimous Warren Court ruled that segregation in public schools was “inherently unequal” and thus unconstitutional and reversed a more that 50 year old previous Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson which said that having “separate but equal” facilities were constitutional.  President Eisenhower shied away from employing his vast popularity in support of promoting integration, preferring instead to believe that the Brown decision upset “the customs and convictions of at least two generations of Americans” and believing that “prejudice… will not succumb to compulsion. Truman, although he had desegregated the U.S. military by signing Executive Order 9981, found that any further attempts to get Congress to pass Civil Rights legislation were stymied by Southern Democrats and a Republican Congress.

6.  Explain how the Deep South's "massive resistance" to desegregation manifested itself and how Eisenhower may have contributed to its perpetration.  858-859

In the Deep South, diehards who strongly opposed change, organized “massive resistance” against desegregation.  More than 100 southern Congressmen and Senators signed a Declaration of Constitutional Principles in 1956 pledging their unyielding resistance to desegregation.  Several states diverted public funds to hastily created “private” schools” where the integration order was more difficult to apply.  The Klu Klux Klan and/or other white citizens’ councils through black intimidation thwarted attempts to make integration a reality.  Ten years after the Brown decision fewer than 2% of Deep South blacks were integrated into classrooms with whites.

7.  What did President Eisenhower do in September, 1957 after Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas, mobilized the National Guard to prevent nine black students from enrolling in Little Rock Central High School?  859

In September, 1957  Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, mobilized the National Guard to prevent nine black students from enrolling in Little Rock Central High School challenging the decision made in Brown v. Board of Education which held that school segregation was unconstitutional.  Eisenhower, who had previously refused to issue a public statement regarding the Court’s decision, saw the Governor’s move as a direct challenge to federal authority and sent troops to escort the nine children to their classes.

8.  What tactics did Southern blacks use to take the "civil rights movement into their own hands" 859

Southern blacks, under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 which mobilized the vast power of black churches on behalf of black rights.  In February, 1960 four black college freshmen in Greensboro, NC sat down at a “white only” lunch counter at a Woolworths and refused to get up.  They were refused service but the next day 19 students returned and the following day 85 students joined in.  By the end of the week a thousand came.  The sit-in movement rolled swiftly across the South, swelling into a wave of wade-ins, lie-ins and pray-ins to compel equal treatment in restaurants, transportation, employment, housing, and voter registration. In April, 1960 southern black students formed SNCC  (pronounced “snick”) or Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1963 and helped organize the March on Washington, the Selma march and freedom rides in cooperation with other anti-segregation groups such as the NAACP.

1. How did Eisenhower's "dynamic conservatism" "consolidate rather than destroy the new social contract that had been forged during the Great Depression"? 862

Eisenhower explained dynamic conservatism as meaning that he was "conservative when it comes to money, liberal when it comes to human beings"  In presidential actions, this took the form of continuing social welfare programs while reducing government's social welfare monetary obligations. Eisenhower believed in limiting government spending and allowing the marketplace to operate as freely as possible. This cautious approach toward social welfare programs entailed no ambitious efforts to roll back the major achievements of the New Deal.  In fact he believed that any political party that attempted to abolish New Deal policies would be destroyed politically.  Thus under the Eisenhower administration, New Deal policies were strengthened rather than destroyed.

2. What were the positive and negative consequences of Eisenhower's Federal Highway Act of 1956?  862

The Federal Highway Act of 1956 authorized a $27 billion plan to build forty-two thousand miles of interstate highways.  Eisenhower felt that such roads were essential to the national defense, allowing U.S. troops to mobilize anywhere in the country in the event of a Soviet invasion.  Creating these modern, multi-lane highways produced countless construction jobs and sped up the suburbanization of America.  It also benefited many industries including oil, automobile, trucking and travel, all of which grew exponentially once there were efficient roads to travel on.  Some negative consequences also resulted from the development of these highways including reduced air quality and increased energy consumption as more and more automobiles took to these new highways. Businesses which once thrived in the cities left to take up residence in suburban shopping malls leaving cities without their once lucrative tax base.

3. What was Eisenhower's "massive retaliation" doctrine; why was it initiated and how was its weakness exposed in Hungary in 1956? 862-863

Eisenhower’s Secretary of State John Foster Dulles promised not just to “contain” communism but to “roll back” its gains and “liberate captive peoples”.  However, Eisenhower had promised to be fiscally conservative and to balance the budget by cutting military spending.  Dulles tried to reconcile these two contradictory goals by beefing up the Strategic Air Command’s air fleet of super bombers and equipping them with nuclear bombs.  These would be fearsome weapons that would inflict “massive retaliation” on the Soviets or Chinese in case of a conflict. The theory was that the new policy would provide nuclear intimidation with a relatively cheap price tag.  Unfortunately, this theory proved illusory when, in 1955, Hungary, a Soviet satellite, rose up against the Soviets and the U.S. stood idly by while the Soviets crushed the revolt.  America’s nuclear sledgehammer was too heavy a weapon to wield in such a relatively minor crisis and the weakness of the “massive retaliation” doctrine was starkly exposed.

4. Why did the United States back the French in their struggle with the anti-colonial forces of Ho Chi Minh and how did the outcome of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu continue to perpetuate American involvement in the region?  863-864

Ironically, at the end of WWII, France, which had itself been a victim of domination by Nazi Germany, and had been subsequently freed from oppression, felt no such obligation to relinquish its colonial interest in the area that was then known as Indochina (comprised today of the countries of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia).  As such, in September, 1945, Ho Chi Minh, who had appealed personally to President Woodrow Wilson as early as 1919 to support self-determination for the peoples of Southeast Asia and who had fought against the Japanese during WWII, declared independence for the People’s Republic of Vietnam.  The French would not relinquish colonial control and a long and bitter rebellion for Vietnamese nation status ensued pitting Ho Chi Minh’s communist Viet Minh against French colonial forces.  The fighting culminated in 1953 at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu where Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist forces were victorious forcing the French into a multinational conference in Geneva where a North and South Vietnam was established at the 17th parallel. Ho Chi Minh occupied the North and Vietnam-wide elections were promised within two years.  In the south a pro-Western government was established.  The United States who had always backed the French occupation as a bulwark against Ho Chi Minh’s perceived Communist aggression, now found itself backing the pro-Western government of South Vietnam which continued to be funded and supported by the U.S.  Despite assurances for free elections within two years the promise never materialized and eventually the United States found itself embroiled in what became known as the Vietnam War.

5. What motivated the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to help install an authoritarian and dictatorial government in Iran in 1953 and what was the long term consequence of that decision? 864, 927

When the government of Iran, which was believed at the time to have been influenced by the Soviets, began to resist Western American companies that were controlling Iranian petroleum, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) helped to engineer a coup (of the government) in 1953 that installed Mohammed Reza Pahlevi (known simply as the Shah of Iran) as a kind of dictator.  This move secured Iranian oil for the West but the repressive government that the U.S. left behind with its intervention, created a bitter resentment among many Iranians which culminated in the ousting of the Shah of Iran and his repressive government in January, 1979.  The violent overthrow was spearheaded by Muslim fundamentalists who resented the shah’s campaign to westernize and secularize Iran and denounced the United States as the “Great Satan” for aiding and abetting the shah’s government.  These extremists engulfed Iran in chaos which soon spread to Iran’s oil fields and eventually led to a second oil crisis in the United States.

6. How did the Suez Crisis of 1956 lead to the formation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1960? 864-865

In 1956 the President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser (Nasser) an ardent Arab nationalist, was seeking funds to build an immense dam on the upper Nile river for urgently needed irrigation and power.  The U.S. and Britain tentatively offered the funds for the project but when Nassar began to flirt openly with the Soviets the U.S. and Britain withdrew their offer.  Nassar responded by announcing the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, a joint British-French enterprise which had owned and operated the Suez Canal since its construction in 1869.  This move effectively allowed Egypt to control the flow of oil from the Middle East to Western Europe which needed to pass through the Suez Canal.  Believing that the U.S. would supply them with oil while Middle Eastern supplies were disrupted, the British and the French (aided by Israel) staged a joint assault on Egypt in October, 1956.  However, contrary to their belief, President Eisenhower refused to release any emergency oil supplies to the British and French and they were forced to resentfully withdraw their troops. By 1960 many Arab countries in the region sought to reap for themselves the lion’s share of the enormous oil wealth that Western companies were pumping out of their countries and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran joined with Venezuela in 1960 to form OPEC or the Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries which for the next two decades tightened an oil stranglehold on Western economies.