The Early Cold War in

America

Baby BoomIt seems to me that every other young housewife I see is pregnant. -- British visitor to America, 1958

Baby Boom

Dr. Benjamin Spock

Suburban Living

$7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.

Levittowns “The American Dream”1949 William Levitt produced 150 houses per week.

Suburban Living:The New “American Dream”

- 1 story high- 12’x19’ living room- 2 bedrooms- tiled bathroom- garage- small backyard- front lawn

By 1960 1/3 of the U. S. population in the suburbs.

New American Dream?

Election of 1952Dem- Adlai Stevenson

Rep – Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower

Who won the 1952 election?

Interstate Highway System

• Eisenhower championed its formation. • Saw highways as necessary for national defense

• System allowed private and commercial transportation, BUT • more importantly

• allows transport for military supplies and troop deployments in case of an emergency

Massive RetaliationJanuary 12, 1955 Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announces Massive Retaliation.

• Threatens full-scale nuclear attack on the Soviet Union in response to communist aggression

• Brinkmanship: a willingness to push a dangerous situation to the verge (to the brink of) disaster in order to secure the greatest advantage• by creating diplomatic crises, etc

"The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art. If you cannot master it, you inevitably get into war. If you try to run away from it, if you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost." - John Foster Dulles

COLD WAR: HOMEFRONT

Fear of Nuclear War. Americans were urged to build bomb shelters in their own basements.

Federal Civil Defense Administration (1950) -Educate people how to survive Atomic blast -Mobilize people in event of Atomic warfare

The Red Scare : Hysteria In the 1950’s, communism = clear and

present danger/enemy Communist Conspiracy??

Institutions sought to rid themselves of real or imagined subversives.

fear of being suspected Panic gave way to…

Joseph McCarthy

Gained national spotlight in 1950

Became the most visible public face of anti-communism (and for some paranoia)

Republican US Senator from

Wisconsin

McCarthyism MCCARTHYISM: Characterized by uncontrollable,

and unproven accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents

Criticizing McCarthy brought a risk of being called a communist spy or sympathizer

HUAC

Republican-controlled Congress established HUAC House Committee on Un-American Activities: Sought to

root out Communists in US gov. Created to investigate treachery and subversive

associations. (1938–75) HUAC’s anti-communist investigations are often

confused with those of McCarthy (a Senator)

The Blacklist

• 1947: HUAC had hearings into alleged communist propaganda and influence in film.

• Hollywood blacklist—a list of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals denied employment because of their political beliefs or associations, real or suspected.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Paranoia was increasing among the

American nation because: Russia & A-Bomb Invasion of South Korea by the North Revelations and confessions of

communists The intensity of the McCarthy mentality

of the times The Rosenbergs were convicted on March

29, 1951, and sentenced to death under Section 2 of the Espionage Act.

Teen CultureTEENAGE AMERICA: 1950s the word “teenager”

entered the American lexiconBy 1956 13 mil. teens with $7 bil. to spend a

year.1954 Elvis Presley releases his first record.

Rock & Roll seen as dangerous …“race music”

Teen Culture“Juvenile Delinquency” ???

Marlon Brando in

The Wild One (1953)

James Dean inRebel Without a

Cause (1955)

1951 J. D. Salinger’s A Catcher in the Rye

The Beat Generation

• Beat Generation: group of American writers. Came to prominence during the 1950s.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night-Howl Allen Ginsberg

" But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"  -from On The Road

Jack Kerouac

Sputnik• On October 4, the Soviet

Union launches Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit the Earth.

• In 1958, the U.S. creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the space race is in full gear.

1959 - Castro takes power• January 1, 1959 leftist forces

under Fidel Castro overthrow the US supported Batista regime

• Castro nationalizes the sugar industry and signs trade agreements with the Soviet Union.

• The next year, Castro seizes U.S. assets on the island.

The U-2 Affair•May, 1960: a U-2 spy plane shot down over the USSR• The US denied the mission

• BUT USSR produced plane and the pilot

•Eisenhower refused to publicly apologize to Khrushchev. •Caused a peace summit to collapse•Relations between USSR and US severely damaged

Election of 1960

• Republican Vice President Richard Nixon faced Democratic Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy.

• Alaska & Hawaii• 20th century.

John F. Kennedy (D)    

    Electoral 303

Popular 34,227,096

Richard M. Nixon (R)

  Electoral 219

Popular 34,107,646

Harry F. Byrd (D)

Electoral 15

Popular 116,248

   

   

   

Military Industrial Complex

• MIC refers to policy relationships between governments, armed forces, and the industrial sector.

• These relationships include political approval for research, development, production, and use of weapons“An informal and changing coalition of groups with vested

psychological, moral, and material interests in the continuous development and maintenance of high levels of weaponry, in

preservation of colonial markets and in military-strategic conceptions of internal affairs.” –Daniel Guerin

The Berlin Wall Goes Up (1961)

•The Wall was constructed in 1961.• It completely enclosed the city of West Berlin, separating it from East Germany 

Bay of Pigs, Cuba: April 17, 1961

• CIA trained 1,400 Cuban Exiles• Kennedy cancelled air support• Cubans did not rise up in support of exiles• Castro personally led defense of island• 1,189 captured/100 killed• Failure!...Influence??

Cuban Missile Crisis

Cuban Missile Crisis

• September 1962: Cuba & USSR began to build bases for ballistic nuclear missiles

• October 14: U2 spy plane discovered proof• Kennedy considered an attack on Cuba…decided on

“quarantine” instead.• no weapons on Cuba • demand Soviets dismantle the missile bases

Cuban Missile Crisis

• Secret negotiators resolved the crisis. • Crisis ends on October 28, 1962 with an agreement to

• USSR dismantle the weapons• US Agrees to never invade Cuba.

• unwritten part of the agreement, the US removed ballistic missiles from Turkey.

November 22, 1963

• Dallas: JFK rallying support for re-election.

6th floor

Sniper’s perch

• This is Lee Harvey Oswald’s view from the 6th floor of the School Book Depository

3rd shot

1st shot

Sniper perch

Oswald fled the scene • He checked into his

boarding house on 1026 Beckley.

• Officer J. Tippit stops on the street to talk to Oswald.

• Oswald shoots him 4 times

Arrested

• Oswald finally caught in a movie theater

LBJ was sworn in at Love Field

Oswald transferred to another jail.• While being

escorted to another prison Oswald shot/killed• Jack Ruby: Dallas

nightclub owner• Oswald never gave

a reason…claimed his innocence while in custody.