T7 Political Flashcards
1
Q
Truman Presidency (1945 - 1953)
A
- In April 1945, following the death of Franklin Roosevelt, Truman became president and was responsible for a series of policies at home and abroad which brought about post-war reconstruction.
- He had little experience and was not seen as FDR’s obvious successor.
- However, he was convinced that the USA was the world’s best hope for peace and prosperity and he believed that this hope could be best realised if the USA developed a political and social system that was an example to the rest of the world.
- Truman realised that not all Americans lived in prosperity and aimed to widen the scope of the New Deal, proposing, in 1945, wide-ranging reforms of housing and health care
2
Q
Full Employment Bill (1945)
A
- However, his immediate concern was the matter of employment.
- In 1945, he introduced the Full Employment Bill to Congress.
- This Bill declared employment to be a right and required the government to ensure that jobs were available.
- The Bill also increased the dole, included a higher minimum wage, farm price supports and a public works programme.
- The US Congress, however, was to water down many of Truman’s proposals.
3
Q
Truman’s Labour Relations
A
- The Second World War had brought about inflation which, in turn, encouraged union leaders to call strikes demanding wage rises.
- Truman called a special labour-management conference in November 1945 in an attempt to prevent further strike action but the conference ended without agreement.
- In April 1945, the United Mine Workers came out on strike for a pay increase.
- In May 1945, the railroads were hit by strikes. Truman now decided on firm action and announced that he would conscript the railroad workers and have the army run the railroads.
- Truman also wanted to introduce legislation that would restrict the right to strike against the government and would impose severe penalties on those that broke the law.
- This proved unnecessary, because the rail strike was called off.
- Truman had demonstrated the continued hostility of the Federal Government to labour and strike action.
4
Q
Truman’s Veto of the Taft–Hartley Bill
A
- As a result of the 1946 mid-term elections, Truman faced major political opposition as his political opponents, the Republicans, won control of both Houses of Congress.
- This was shown in the following year when Congress proposed the Taft–Hartley Bill, which made labour unions liable for violations of contracts, and prevented them from insisting that all workers
must join a trade union as a condition of employment. - Truman, however, unwilling to lose the support of labour, vetoed the bill but Congress passed it despite his objections.
- In 1948, Truman called Congress into special session and tried, unsuccessfully, to pass various New Deal-type measures.
5
Q
he 1948 Presidential Election
A
- Truman was expected to lose the presidential election of 1948.
- His party, the Democrats, was split. Henry Wallace, a former vice-president of FDR, set up the Progressive Party.
- Strom Thurmond, a southern conservative, disliked Truman’s support for civil rights and also stood against Truman.
- Opinion polls suggested that the Republican candidate, Thomas E. Dewey, would win the election.
- However, Truman promised New-Deal type measures and went on a 30,000 mile whistle-stop tour of the USA, defending his achievements as president and criticising the Republican ‘donothing’ Congress.
- In one of the biggest electoral surprises in US history, Truman won a majority of over 2 million votes and the Democrats regained control of Congress.
6
Q
The Fair Deal (1949)
A
In 1949, Truman declared that ‘Every segment of our population and every individual has a right to expect from our government a fair deal’. He tried to introduce a whole range of welfare measures but Republican and Democratic conservatives blocked many of his reform proposals. He did, however, succeed in raising the minimum wage, extending the Social Security Act and passed an act to assist slum clearance and to provide housing for the poor.
7
Q
The ‘Hidden-Handed’ Presidency
A
- Eisenhower’s presidency divided opinion both at the time and in later years.
- Critics at the time accused him of being far too conservative, a do-nothing president who spent his time playing golf.
- He has also been accused of representing big business, especially as his cabinet was composed mainly of millionaire businessmen, three of whom had worked in the car industry.
- He also seemed to show little sympathy for civil rights.
8
Q
Historical Revisionist Interpretations
A
- However, more recently historians such as Stephen Ambrose have become more sympathetic to his presidency, seeing him as a safe pair of hands who made things look deceptively easy.
- They suggest that he chose an able team, delegated well and had a good record as a mediator.
- Eisenhower insisted that leadership only works through ‘persuasion and conciliation and education and patience’.
- Historians refer to Ike’s ‘hidden-handed’ presidency. He knew where he wanted to go and steered the country in that direction. He worked well with a Congress which, for most of his presidency, was controlled by the Democrats and was popular with most Americans.
9
Q
Eisenhower’s Domestic Achievements
A
- As a moderate Republican, Eisenhower was able to achieve numerous legislative victories despite a Democratic majority in Congress during six of his eight years in office.
- He called his programme ‘dynamic conservatism’. This meant, he said, being ‘conservative when it comes to money and liberal when it comes to human beings’.
- He was determined to, and succeeded in, decreasing the role of federal government. For example, he ended wage and price controls and reduced farm subsidies.
- Even so, he accepted that federal government should have some responsibility for the welfare of its citizens and that it should promote economic growth.
- In addition to continuing most of the New Deal and Fair Deal programmes of his predecessors (Franklin Roosevelt and Truman, respectively), he strengthened the Social Security programme, increased the minimum wage and created the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
- In 1956, Eisenhower created the Interstate Highway System, the single largest public works programme in US history, which would construct 41,000 miles of roads across the country.
- In addition, huge sums of money were spent completing the St Lawrence Seaway, linking the Great Lakes with the Atlantic.
10
Q
Eisenhower’s Farewell Warning (The ‘Military-Industrial Complex’)
A
- In his farewell address Eisenhower warned of the dangers of what he called the ‘military-industrial complex’.
- By ‘military-industrial complex’ he interdependent close relationship between the military, intelligence agencies and defense industries that had grown powerful within US politics as a consequence of the cold war.
- He believed that the ‘military-industrial complex’ posed a challenge to democratic civilian rule and oversight by government over the military, intelligence and defense industries.
- This farewell warning to the US public was considered very powerful given Eisenhower’s unquestionable personal military experience and reputation.
- ‘In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for disastrous rise for misplaced power exists and persists’.
11
Q
McCarthyism and the Second ‘Red Scare
A
- In the years following the Second World War there was growing rivalry between the USA and the Soviet Union due partly to the American fear of the spread of Communism.
- The USA felt vulnerable against Communist influence at home too. The US Communist Party had never attracted more than 100,000 supporters and far fewer actual members.
- There was, however, a fear that if such supporters were in influential positions, they could do untold damage within the USA.
12
Q
Foreign Causes of the Second ‘Red Scare’
A
- Developments outside the USA increased the fear of Communism.
- The fall of China to the Communists in 1949 was unexpected and some felt the State Department could have done more to prevent it.
- This led to the creation of a powerful ‘China lobby’, which campaigned for action against the new Communist regime and also a detailed investigation to discover how the USA had come to let it
fall. - Pat McCarran, a Democratic Senator from Nevada, was a key figure in the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee that tried to persuade people that China had fallen to Communism as a result of the work of secret Communist infiltrators within the State Department.
- In addition, the development of the Cold War in Europe in the years after 1945 and increasing US involvement in Asia, particularly the Korean War, intensified the fear of the spread of Communism
to the USA.
13
Q
Developments in the USA
A
- There was a series of spy scandals in Britain, Canada and the USA that scared the Americans.
- A British physicist, Klaus Fuchs, was convicted of giving nuclear secrets to the USSR.
- One of his associates, Harry Gold, was arrested on the same charge in the USA.
- It was felt the USSR had been able to develop its own nuclear weapons so quickly through the infiltration of Soviet agents into the Manhattan Project. Scientists Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were
executed for giving away atomic secrets. - One Soviet official wrote that they acquired the necessary information about how the atomic bombs were made in the USA and what they were made of in Britain.
- There was no doubt that Communists had infiltrated many branches of US government during the war; the Soviets later claimed that they had 221 operatives spying in the various branches of
government.
14
Q
The Alger Hiss Trial
A
- It was, however, the trial of Alger Hiss that really caught the public imagination.
- Hiss was President of the Carnegie Institute. Alger Hiss trial A former Communist, Whittaker Chambers was now editor of Time magazine, which was particularly anti-Communist.
- He accused Hiss of being a Communist during his time at the State Department, which he had joined in 1936.
- Hiss had been an important official who had been a key figure at the Yalta Conference.
- When Hiss sued Chambers, the latter was able to produce evidence that suggested Hiss had in fact handed over copies of secret documents to the Soviets in 1938.
- While Hiss’s alleged treason had been too far in the past for him to be prosecuted for it, he was nevertheless found guilty of perjury for lying to the court and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.
- The case led to widespread accusations of Communism in high places in the USA.
- In 1947, President Truman appeared to fuel these charges by introducing the Loyalty Review Board to check up on government employees.
- Any found to be sympathetic to ‘subversive organisations’ could be fired.
- Within four years at least 1,200 had been dismissed and a further 6,000 resigned.
- Over 150 organisations were banned, of which 110 were accused of supporting Communism
- Eleven leaders of the Communist Party were prosecuted under the 1940 Smith Act and sentenced to up to five years in prison. It was argued that their beliefs suggested they would try to overthrow
the government in the USA; they had not actually done anything.
15
Q
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)
A
- The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) set up by Congress in 1938 relentlessly investigated those suspected of supporting Communism.
- There had already in the late 1940s been a campaign against members of the Hollywood film community who were accused of making films with Communist content aimed at brainwashing
Americans. - This saw, among others, the film-maker Charlie Chaplin, a British citizen, being forced to leave the USA.
- While many Hollywood actors such as Gary Cooper had supported the Committee’s investigations, others had refused to answer questions.
- The ‘Hollywood Ten’, mainly a group of writers and directors, were fired from their jobs and eventually sent to prison for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before the HUAC.
16
Q
The Soviet A-Bomb (1949)
A
- In 1949, the USSR exploded their first nuclear weapon.
- The USA had therefore lost its monopoly on atomic weapons.
- President Truman said the USA would seek to develop a hydrogen bomb, with as much as a thousand times the power of an atomic bomb.
- When this weapon was finally tested in 1954, both sides were entering into an arms race and developing weapons of mass destruction that could, if used, have led to the end of the world.
17
Q
McCarthyism
A
- Joseph McCarthy was the hard-drinking and previously insignificant junior Senator for Wisconsin.
- On 9 February 1950, he made a speech in which he said the State Department was infested with spies.
- Although he had not a shred of evidence to back up his claims, many listened and believed him.
- The speech saw the inauguration of a witch-hunt against members of the State Department, other public servants, and finally the army.
- In 1953, McCarthy was subsequently given control of the Senate Committee on Government Operations and its subcommittee on Investigations.
- His team included the future Senator, Bobby Kennedy.
- At first McCarthy was highly successful. No one in the public eye seemed safe from his accusations and McCarthy became one of the most popular men in the USA.
- He gained support from such diverse groups as the American Legion and Christian fundamentalists.
- Much of his support was also derived from the less well-educated and less affluent members of society; those of whom, it is often alleged, would be more prepared to believe simplistic conspiracy theories.
- These were also the groups that had supported the attacks against the well-off members of the
State Department. - Many argued that New Deal measures were Communist inspired and these now came under renewed attack.
- Those advocating civil rights measures, support for the United Nations and any redistribution of wealth could all be accused of having Communist sympathies.
- One school librarian in Indiana banned books about Robin Hood because she said in robbing the rich to give to the poor, his story promoted Communism.
- Many books including classics were re-examined for subversive content.
18
Q
McCarthy’s Downfall
A
- However, it was McCarthy’s manner and accusations that saw his downfall.
- Not only did he condemn such highly respected figures as General George Marshall, who had introduced Marshall Aid, but in 1954 he also began to investigate the army as hiding a possible nest of Communists.
- In so doing, he appeared to criticise an institution until recently embroiled in a full-scale war against Communism in Korea: the very thing he was accusing its members of supporting.
- Millions saw the hearings on the new medium of television in December 1954 where they turned against the bullying tactics of McCarthy, who also appeared at times to be drunk.
- Children mocked his manner at school and in the streets; but generally, his audiences saw he was completely bereft of any hard evidence to support his accusations.
- The army’s attorney, Joseph Welch, stood up to McCarthy when he accused a junior member of Welch’s team of having belonged to an organisation that he claimed had been pro-Communist, while at college.
- He accused McCarthy of attacking people without a shred of evidence in support.
- President Eisenhower, a former military commander, was critical of McCarthy’s investigation of the army.
- However, the tables appeared to turn in particular when McCarthy himself was accused of seeking preferential treatment for one of his aides who had been drafted into the army.
- He was censured by the Senate and returned to obscurity until his death from alcoholism in 1957.
- The ‘Red Scare’, which he had done so much to exaggerate, gradually died away.
