XIV. U.S. Domestic Politics 1945-1968
Learning Objective:
Understand the United States under the presidency of Harry S.
Truman.
The overshadowing domestic fear of the immediate post-war world
was the dread of a catastrophic post-war depression that might
end in national bankruptcy and world chaos. The Marshall Plan
was one answer to that fear; domestically the GI Bill of Rights
assisted veterans in finding employment. It also helped pay
for college education and medical care—$13.5 billion was pumped
into the economy for veteran education and training alone. Recently
discharged veterans were paid $20 a week for up to fifty-two
weeks or until such time as they found a job (the average length
was three months). Yet because of the pent-up demand for consumer
goods, inflation, not depression was the result. After wartime
controls were lifted off the economy in July 1946, wholesale
prices shot up an average of 25 percent.
Truman became president with death of FDR in April, 1945. Cast
in the shadow of Roosevelt, Truman seemed a second-rate figure.
In the off-year elections of 1946 the Republicans capitalized
on American anxieties about the post-war world, and Truman's
ability to handle them, and won majorities in both houses of
Congress for the first time since 1930. Unfortunately for the
Republicans, their program involved little more than trying
to reverse the reforms of the New Deal and voting down Truman's
"Fair Deal" programs. Truman vetoed eighty Republican
bills that attacked the New Deal and sent to Capitol Hill proposal
after proposal that expanded social services. While most of
his proposals were defeated by Congress (he increased the minimum
wage and brought 10 million more people under social security),
his advocacy of them insured that the Democratic coalition would
hold firm during the 1948 election.
One of the results of World War II was the increase in stature
and influence of business and a corresponding decrease in popular
support for labor unions. The idea of being the "arsenal
of democracy" made it hard for politicians to attack business
as they had during the New Deal. Also, thousands of businessmen
became dollar a year men in government. It was during World
War II that the military-industrial complex began to form.
Truman was the first president to actively advocate the end
of discrimination against American blacks. When Congress refused
to take action on civil rights, Truman responded with an executive
order that banned racial discrimination in the armed forces,
in the civil service, and in companies that did business with
the federal government. The government did little to actually
enforce these orders. For example, it was the Korean War, not
Truman's order, that integrated the armed forces. The first
troops sent to Korea in 1950 from Japan suffered large numbers
of casualties trying to stop the North Korean advance. Combat
replacements were not yet available from the United States.
The only troops available were the rear echelon troops already
in Korea and Japan. Many of these soldiers were black. Thrown
into battle out of desperation, the black soldiers, on the whole,
fought well and bravely in integrated units. It was their performance
that finally convinced the armed forces to integrate. Nevertheless,
Truman's program was politically shrewd. Hundreds of thousands
of blacks had moved out of the South, where they were disfranchised,
into big cities in Northern and Western states with large numbers
of electoral votes. Truman's civil rights policies insured that
the Democratic party would continue to receive the black vote.
Learning Objective:
Understand the election of 1948.
By 1948 Truman seemed to have lost control of the economic
and political situation. Republicans asked, "had enough?"
"To err is Truman" became a popular joke. The Republicans
nominated their 1944 candidate, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of
New York. The Democrats nominated Truman. Because of his civil
rights program the Southern branch of the Democratic party bolted
and nominated Strom Thurmond for President on the States Rights
or Dixiecrat party ticket. On the left, Henry A. Wallace led
a group that disapproved of Truman's get tough with the Soviets
approach. They left the Democratic party to form the Progressive
party. These splits, far from hurting Truman, strengthened him.
The Southern walkout insured Truman the black urban vote which
more than made up for the four Southern states he lost to Thurmond.
Wallace's defection cleared Truman of the Republican charges
that he "was soft on Communism."
Truman conducted an adroit campaign. After the nominating conventions
he called the Republican controlled congress back into session
and challenged them to pass the Republican platform planks into
law. With the Democrats stalling, and with all members eager
to get out on the campaign trail, no important legislation was
passed. Truman then put the Republicans on the defensive by
campaigning against the "do-nothing Eightieth Congress."
His campaign reinforced the New Deal loyalty to the Democratic
party.
Public-opinion polls forecast a sure Republican victory (they
stopped polling two weeks before the election). Life magazine
ran an issue with Dewey on the cover with the headline "our
next president." The Chicago Tribune put out an election
extra announcing that "Dewey Defeats Truman." But
Truman received 24.1 million popular votes against 22 million
for Dewey, and 303 electoral votes against 189. Truman won for
two reasons. First, the Democratic coalition of blacks, union
members, and northern urban ethnics held. Second, the Republicans
were so confident of victory that many of them did not vote.
The 53 percent voter turn-out was the lowest in history. Truman's
victory was a party victory, not a personal one, although the
Democrats also regained control of Congress.
Learning Objective:
Understand the Second Red Scare.
The Soviet take over of Eastern Europe, the Chinese Communist
victory in China, the invasion of South Korea by the Communist
North, and the Soviet explosion of an atomic bomb in 1949 bewildered
and frightened the American people. In addition, the Truman
administration conducted a public relations campaign designed
to "scare the hell" out of the American people to
get support for its containment policies. When these factors
combined with politicians willing to take advantage of the situation
for their own personal benefit, a great fear of subversion and
Communism swept the United States.
In 1947 President Truman set up a federal loyalty program.
By December 1952, 6.6 million people had been checked for security
— 490 were dismissed as ineligible for government employment
on loyalty grounds. No cases of espionage were uncovered by
the investigations. On the other hand, several people who had
worked on the development of the atomic bomb were convicted
of passing information to the Soviets, and two of them, Ethel
and Julius Rosenberg, were executed in 1953.
In February, 1950 a little-known senator from Wisconsin, Joseph
R. McCarthy, gave a speech in Wheeling West Virginia. "I
have here in my hand a list," he said — a list of Communists
in the State Department. He insisted that these Communists were
"known to the Secretary of State," and they were "still
working and making policy." In other words, according to
McCarthy, Secretary of State Acheson himself, as well as other
high-ranking government officials, actively abetted Communist
subversion.
McCarthy had no such list. He never released a single name,
and never fingered a single Communist in government. Yet McCarthy
rose to power because of the political conditions created during
the late 1940s by a group of Republicans as they sought power.
The Democratic victory of 1948 was terribly frustrating to the
Republicans. They had been denied the presidency since 1933
and they had thought for sure that it would be theirs in 1948
— four more years of Democratic rule was a bitter realization.
By placing the blame for the post-war success of Communism on
internal American subversion the Republicans had a sure-fire
campaign issue against the Democrats. It was a simple solution
to a complex problem and it appealed to the American people
— Communism succeed, not because American was innately wrong
or weak, but because traitors had undermined the system from
within. McCarthy, with the tact support of congressional Republicans,
made himself the personal symbol in the American fight against
Communism — in other words, for a time, to attack Joe McCarthy
was to attack the "American way of life."
To many Republicans McCarthy symbolized the issues generated
by more than a decade of attacks against the Democratic administrations
of Roosevelt and Truman. When two Democrat Senators who had
opposed McCarthy were defeated in the 1950 elections (their
defeat was not because of their opposition to McCarthy, but
people thought otherwise) Democrats feared him as a threat to
personal and party fortunes. As a result neither party acted
to check McCarthy or to restrain his excessive behavior. In
this sense both McCarthy and McCarthyism can be understood as
products of the normal operation of American party politics.
During this period many people had their careers and lives
ruined by gossip and innuendo. "Black lists" were
created in education, entertainment, business, and government.
If a person's name was on the list he could not get work. Anyone
who hired an individual on the list ran the risk of being added
to it. The House UnAmerican Activities Committee called hundreds
of witnesses before it, badgering them and questioning their
veracity. Throughout the country, zealous citizens anxious to
protect their communities from the taint of Communism, failed
to distinguish between Communism and the traditional American
right to dissent.
With election of the Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower to the
presidency in 1952, McCarthy became an embarrassment to the
Republican party. For over a year Eisenhower tried to get along
with McCarthy. But McCarthy grew increasingly erratic and the
televised Army-McCarthy hearings of April-June 1954 proved to
be his downfall. By taking on the army and the Eisenhower administration
McCarthy went too far — his behavior on television turned many
Americans against him and the Senate moved to censure him. If
McCarthy had not attacked Eisenhower, the Republican State Department,
and other Republican Senators, he probably would not have been
censured by a 67 to 22 vote. McCarthy was censured for his refusal
to appear before a Senate subcommittee to answer questions and
for his abuse of an army general before his own subcommittee.
In other words, McCarthy was censured for breaking the rules
of the Senate—thus the Senate, like the American people, never
really grappled with the real question of the Second Red Scare;
civil liberties during times of national stress. McCarthy died
a broken man in 1957.
Learning Objective:
Understand the United States during the 1950s.
By 1952 people were dissatisfied with twenty years of Democratic
rule. The Republicans selected Dwight D. Eisenhower as their
candidate. Ike had been the Allied Supreme Commander in Europe,
he was a moderate in politics, and he was one of the most popular
men in America ("I Like Ike" was his campaign slogan).
Eisenhower easily defeated his Democrat opponent governor of
Illinois Adlai E. Stevenson. Eisenhower was so popular that
in the 1956 election, a year after suffering a serious heart
attack and just a few months after undergoing major abdominal
surgery, the voters reelected him over Stevenson again by an
even larger margin than in 1952.
Since Eisenhower was the first Republican president after the
New Deal, his acceptance of most of the New Deal programs "legitimatized"
them. They were now viewed as necessary and an integral part
of the American system. Eisenhower was far less conservative
than many liberals feared and many conservatives had hoped.
Emphasis would be, as he expressed it, upon "dynamic conservatism"
— caution in financial and economic matters, but with attention
to problems of human welfare. Under Eisenhower the St. Lawrence
Seaway was built, and the Interstate Highway system was started.
The Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act (1954)
was designed to solve two problems: help the American farmer
by getting rid of surplus farm food (which was expensive to
store and which would deteriorate if stored too long); and,
use the surplus food as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy.
Under this act the government began to sell surplus food to
other nations for foreign currencies (which would then be respent
in the host country), made outright gifts of surplus food to
needy nations, and provided cheap milk for schools. In 1959
food stamps were added to the program.
For a majority of Americans, the 1950s were an age of unprecedented
prosperity. Wealth was still maldistributed; the poor remained
about as numerous as they had been for decades. The lowest-paid
20 percent of the population earned the same 4 percent of the
national income that they had during the 1920s; and the wealthiest
20 percent of the population continued to enjoy about 45 percent
of the national income. What made the difference was the vast
increase in "discretionary income" that evolved during
World War II. In 1950, discretionary income totaled $100 billion
compared with $40 billion in 1940. The sum increased steadily
throughout the decade.
Television was the most significant social development of the
1950s. Invented in 1927, there were only 8,000 privately owned
televisions in the U.S. in 1946. After the war the radio networks
plunged into television, making more extensive programming available
— by 1950 3,880,000 (9 percent) of American homes had televisions.
By 1955 the number had jumped to 64.5 percent of American homes,
and by 1970, more American households were equipped with a television
set than had refrigerators, bathtubs, or indoor toilets.
The impact of television is still unclear. It probably caused
a decline in reading among young people. It helped create a
mass culture. National businesses discovered that they could
compete with local merchants because of television advertising.
During the 1960s, American towns began to look alike with the
growth of chain supermarkets and national franchise companies
that drove local owned businesses into bankruptcy. Because the
network and local news programs preferred announcers who spoke
"standard American English," regional variations in
speech declined. Television carried the events of the day directly
into people's homes — the black civil rights movement of the
1960s, for example, received a great boost when Northern whites
saw on television the Southern white oppression of blacks. The
terrorists of today realize the emotional impact of television
and often use it for their own benefit.
Television helped increase the power of the presidency. FDR
was the first president to recognize the value of the mass media
with his radio broadcast "fireside chats." As the
only nationally elected politician (with the exception of the
vice president) the president can command television time almost
at will. Being able to speak directly to the people of the nation
greatly increases his ability to sell his programs and ideas
— an advantage his political opponents do not have.
The essence of the good life, to many Americans of the 1950s,
was to escape from the cities and the country and move to the
suburbs. In part, young couples of the postwar period had little
choice as to where they would live. World War II had forced
millions of them to delay marrying (or if married, the new wife
tended to live with her parents while her husband was in the
service) and starting a family. In 1945 and 1946, they rushed
into marriage, childbearing, and searching for a place to live.
But because of the stagnation of domestic construction during
the Great Depression and the war, few homes were available.
Land was much less expensive on the outskirts of cities than
downtown, and developers rushed in to fill the housing need.
Of the one million housing starts in 1946 and the 2 million
in 1950 (compared with 142,000 in 1944), the vast majority were
in the suburbs. The houses of suburbia tended to be very similar
in design to allow for quick construction and low selling prices.
By 1960, as many Americans lived in suburbs as in large cities.
The flight from the center cities left urban centers to the
elderly, the poor, and the racial minorities — a poor tax base
— and it segregated the suburbanites from other ages, classes,
and races of people (95 percent of the people living in the
suburbs were white, 25-35 years in age, married couples with
infant children ). Suburban life reinforced the American dependence
upon the automobile. Neighborhood shopping centers began to
disappear to be replaced by the shopping mall. In 1945, there
were eight automobile-oriented shopping centers in the U.S.,
by 1960 there were almost 4,000.
Learning Objective:
Understand the election of John F. Kennedy to the presidency
in 1960.
The election of 1960 pitted Vice President Richard M. Nixon
against Senator John F. Kennedy. Nixon had made his reputation
as a anti-Communist Republican congressman and senator from
California. Kennedy, a witty and charming Senator from Massachusetts,
had lost a bid to be Stevenson's vice presidential running-mate
in 1956, but he had gained national recognition in the attempt.
The Democratic Senate leader, Texan Lyndon B. Johnson, who had
run second to Kennedy in the convention balloting, accepted
Kennedy's request to be the vice presidential candidate.
As usual, personalities and emotions probably played a more
important role than issues in the campaign. The two candidates
were in basic agreement on most major questions. Kennedy's central
theme was the need for positive leadership, public sacrifice,
and a bold national effort to "get America moving again."
He spoke often of a "missile gap" (actually nonexistent)
that Eisenhower had allowed to develop between the U.S. and
the Soviet Union. Nixon denied that the military and economic
situation was as bad as Kennedy claimed and he stated that he
was the man to move America forward.
The election was extremely close, Kennedy's popular majority
was only 119,057 out of 68.3 million votes. The margin in the
Electoral College was more decisive — 303 for Kennedy to 219
for Nixon (with 15 Southern votes for the segregationist candidate
Harry F. Byrd of Virginia). Kennedy was the nation's first Catholic
president. His Catholicism enabled him to capture the votes
of some Catholic Republicans and many Catholic Democrats, but
Nixon captured even more Democratic Protestant votes. The election
also foreshadowed the break-up of the New Deal Democratic coalition.
Party loyalty was declining as ticket splitting and independent
voting became even more pronounced. White southerners continued
to move out of the Democratic party because of its support (as
compared to the Republicans) for black rights. Nixon received
almost half of the southern popular vote. Senator Byrd gave
white Southerners an opportunity to vote against the Democrats,
and most white Southerners could not bring themselves to vote
Republican yet (the party of Lincoln and the hated "Yankees"),
but the time was soon coming. Kennedy won by barely keeping
the Democratic coalition together.
Kennedy's "New Frontier" programs faced serious obstacles
in Congress. The coalition of conservative Republicans and Southern
Democrats that had been blocking or diluting progressive legislation
since 1938 continued to resist most of his programs. For example,
Kennedy was unable to get a school aid bill, Medicare, a civil
rights bill, or a tax cut/reform bill through Congress. Kennedy
was able to get the Peace Corps started, and the 1959 Soviet
launching of the Earth's first artificial satellite (Sputnik)
enabled him to convince Congress to begin a massive space research
and development program, which set the goal of passing the Soviets
and sending an American to the moon by 1970 — Southern conservatives
were happy to vote for the space bills since most of the space
facilities were located in their region. Kennedy was able to
lay the groundwork for his programs though, and most importantly,
to bring them to the public's attention. In 1964 the situation
would change. Along with electing Lyndon Johnson to the presidency
a huge Democratic majority was sent to Congress, in large part
because the voters wanted the Democratic program to be enacted.
Learning Objective:
Understand the United States relationship with Cuba.
After the Spanish-American War and the American acquisition
of the Panama Canal, the United States was determined to dominate
the entire Western Hemisphere. American troops would land in
the Caribbean over twenty times during the early 20th century
to protect or consolidate U.S. interests, provoking a mounting
feeling of anti-Americanism in Latin America.
World War I diminished England's historical influence and facilitated
U.S. economic expansion in the hemisphere. Between 1913 and
1920 U.S. commerce with Latin America increased by 400 percent.
In 1929, U.S. investment in the region amounted to over $5 billion,
exceeding Britain's by almost one billion. The Great Depression
and the rise of fascism modified U.S. policy toward Latin America.
Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt the U.S. pursued a "Good
Neighbor" policy toward the region. While U.S. economic
domination did not diminish, U.S. political intervention into
the domestic affairs of Latin American countries did. For example,
when Mexico nationalized its oil industry American oil firms
pressured the U.S. government to take retaliatory action. Instead
President Roosevelt gave Mexico long-term credits to enable
the Mexican government to compensate U.S. companies.
After World War II the U.S. once again relegated Latin America
to a secondary position. The American goal was stability in
the region to allow American businesses to penetrate Latin American
markets. The immense economic power of the U.S based multinational
companies often dwarfed all local enterprises — the annual
sales revenue of United Brands (the old United Fruit Company),
for example, exceeded the entire national budgets of countries
such as Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
After the United States defeated the Spanish in 1898 the United
States sought to make Cuba a self-governing protectorate, an
arrangement designed to protect American interests in Cuba without
the problems of colonialism. The Cuban constitution included
the Platt Amendment which gave the U.S. the naval base at Guantanamo
Bay "in perpetuity," and the right to intervene in
Cuba for the "preservation of Cuban independence"
and for the "maintenance of a government adequate for the
protection of life, property, and individual liberty" (the
intervention portion of the amendment was abrogated in 1934).
The next years witnessed the rapid expansion of sugar production,
increased American investment, persistent political corruption,
and economic and political instability. The Cuban economy was
almost totally dependent upon sugar. By manipulating the amount
of sugar allowed into the U.S. the United States could direct
the Cuban economy. As the U.S. ambassador to Cuba stated in
a 1960 Senate hearing: "The United States…was so
overwhelming influential in Cuba that…the American Ambassador
was the second most important man in Cuba; sometimes even more
important than the Cuban President."
By 1930 foreign companies controlled 80 percent of the Cuban
sugar industry and the majority of the profits from sugar production
left the country. Land ownership was concentrated in very few
hands—twenty-two companies owned 20 percent of Cuba's agricultural
land. Industry was almost nonexistent, for a series of reciprocal
trade agreements with the United States—which guaranteed Cuba's
sugar market—made it impossible for Cuban industry to compete
with American imports. Most sugar workers were needed only during
the harvest; they were jobless during the other eight months
of the year. By the 1950s the economic injustices of the Cuban
economy made it ripe for revolution.
In a 1952 coup Fulgencio Batista gained control of the Cuban
government (Batista had earlier ruled Cuba during 1934-1944).
Batista was typical of the military dictators that often control
third world countries. He preferred bribery and corruption over
brutality, but he was not adverse to using force and torture
if necessary to remain in power. In 1959 Fidel Castro overthrew
Batista and threw U.S. - Cuban relations into a turmoil.
Castro, born in 1927, is the illegitimate son of a wealthy
Cuban landowner. His father's estate contained over 10,000 acres
and employed 500 men. In 1953 Castro led a small band of men
in an attack on some Cuban army barracks in the hope of setting
off a rebellion against Batista. The attack failed, and most
of the men were killed or captured and tortured. Castro himself
was captured several days after the attack and sentenced to
jail. Although the assault failed, the drastic acts of repression
the government carried out in its wake, and Castro's eloquent
defense speech at his trial ("History will Absolve Me")
made him a national hero. Castro spent the next 19 months in
prison. In 1955 Batista proclaimed a general amnesty for all
political prisoners and Castro moved to Mexico.
In 1956 Castro and 81 others landed in Cuba. The landing was
betrayed and he and a small group of other survivors were lucky
to escaped to the Sierra Maestra mountains. From there he conducted
guerrilla raids on government forces. By 1957 violence was rampant
throughout Cuba. Various groups, most unaffiliated with Castro,
attacked Batista's regime and met with government retaliation.
By March, 1958 the United States realized that Batista was doomed
and it suspended arms shipments to his government. On January
1, 1959 Batista and his closest aides fled to safety to Miami
and Castro was in control of the government. Thus, a rebel band,
numbering fewer than 300 until mid-1958 and barely 3,000 when
the old regime fell, defeated the government of Cuba. Castro
won because he was organized, he refused to quit, he had the
backing of the majority of the people, and Batista's army was
corrupt and incompetent.
After taking office Castro consolidated power in his hands.
Public trials and executions of former allies of Batista took
place. Since Castro was a nationalist, and since much of Cuban
wealth was owned by foreigners, he realized that true Cuban
independence would alienate the United States — especially
programs like land reform and the expropriation of industry.
Castro used the Soviet Union as an ally to insure Cuban economic
and political independence from the U.S. The Soviet Union was
only too happy to oblige, seeing a ally only 60 miles from the
shores of the U.S. as a great asset. In February 1960 the Soviet
Union and Cuba signed a trade agreement to exchange Cuban sugar
for Soviet oil and machinery. In June the U.S. eliminated the
Cuban sugar quota and banned all U.S. exports to Cuba. In January
1961 diplomatic relations were severed.
President Eisenhower gave the CIA approval to begin planning
an invasion of Cuba using anti-Castro Cuban refugees. The Cubans
would land at a remote section of the country and set up a base
of operations to carry out guerrilla warfare against Castro
with the goal of overthrowing his government. Upon taking power
in January 1961, President Kennedy approved of the plan and
in April 1961 the invasion began. About 1,400 Cuban exiles,
trained by Americans in Guatemala, carried ashore on American
ships, and covered by American airplanes, landed at the Bay
of Pigs. Castro completely crushed them. Kennedy had played
a delicate game, trying to give enough support to make the invasion
work but not enough to make U.S. involvement obvious. That he
failed in both counts was confirmed when Kennedy had to publicly
claim responsibility for the fiasco and give Castro $60 million
worth of medical and "humanitarian" supplies for the
return of the captured invaders.
Emboldened by this American failure, in 1962 the Soviets began
placing nuclear armed missiles in Cuba. These missiles would
have reduced the warning time to the U.S. to just a few minutes
instead of the 15-20 minute warning that missiles launched from
the Soviet Union would have (at the time the Soviets did not
have submarines capable of launching missiles). Later estimates
showed that the Cuban missiles would have doubled the available
megatonage that the Soviet Union could have used against the
U.S. On the other hand, as the Soviets pointed out to Kennedy,
the U.S. had previously placed nuclear armed missiles in Turkey
that were as close to the Soviet Union as their missiles in
Cuba were to the United States.
After the discovery of the missiles in October 1962, Kennedy
instituted a naval blockade of Cuba and told the Soviet Union
that if they refused to remove the missiles already in Cuba
the U.S. would bomb the missiles sites and invade the island.
After thirteen days in which the world came perilously close
to nuclear war, a deal was struck whereby the U.S. agreed not
to invade Cuba and the Soviets agreed to withdraw their missiles.
The U.S. also secretly agreed to go ahead with its plans of
withdrawing its obsolete missiles from Turkey. The April 1961
Bay of Pigs fiasco greatly increased Castro's prestige in Cuba
and moved him even closer to the Soviet Union. Castro's move
leftward caused many middle and upper class Cubans to flee the
country—eventually over a million Cubans would leave. Castro
began an extensive land reform program and the nationalization
of U.S. owned property without compensation.
From the beginning of its existence the Cuban Communist government
assisted "liberation" movements throughout the underdeveloped
world. In addition to a philosophical belief in these movements,
Castro used the Cuban army to help pay off his debts to the
Soviet Union. As many as 40,000 Cuban troops have been stationed
in Africa; Cuban troops played a significant role in the triumph
of the Marxist regime of Angola. Cuba sponsored civilian aid
programs in over 35 countries. This aid primarily consisted
of medical and education assistance and public works construction—the
latter was a major earner of foreign exchange. The revolution
did not cure Cuba's economic problems. The country is still
economically dependent on sugar production. Sugar makes up over
80 percent of Cuba's exports. Because of the extreme fluctuations
of sugar prices, Cuba was dependent on Soviet subsidies. The
Communist bloc purchased over 60 percent of Cuba's sugar paying
a subsidized price of four times the free market price. With
the break-up of the Soviet Union these subsidized purchases
have ended and Cuba is undergoing profound economic hardships.
While on a political trip to Dallas, Texas on November 22,
1963 President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Oswald was captured and two days later was himself murdered
in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters by a night-club
operator named Jack Ruby. The motives behind Oswald's actions
are not known. Oswald had been in the Soviet Union the year
before the assassination, and he had visited the Cuban embassy
in Mexico City after his return to the United States. Unbeknown
to the public, Kennedy had ordered the CIA to make several assassination
attempts on the Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro. Castro
was aware of the attempts though, and Kennedy's assassination
may have been suggested by the Cubans to Oswald. Another theory
holds that organized crime may have ordered the "hit."
The Kennedy's were pushing hard against the Mob (the President's
brother, Robert, was the Attorney General), and Jack Ruby was
known to have underworld connections (Ruby died in jail from
cancer soon after his conviction for Oswald's murder). In any
case, no solid evidence has been uncovered to prove any theories
about the assassination.
Learning Objective:
Understand Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.
After Kennedy's November, 1963, assassination Lyndon Johnson
became president. Johnson was a product of the New Deal, and
his "Great Society" programs were basically a continuation
of Roosevelt's policies. In 1937 Johnson had been elected to
the House, and in 1948 he entered the Senate. He was elected
minority leader in 1953—a rare tribute to a freshman senator.
From 1955 to 1960 he compiled a distinguished record as Senate
Majority Leader. In 1964, Johnson was elected in his own right,
defeating the conservative Republican candidate Barry Goldwater
overwhelmingly. Goldwater carried only five deep south states
(he had voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act) and his home
state of Arizona.
Unlike Kennedy, Johnson was able to get almost all the legislation
he sent to Congress passed into law. There were three important
reasons for this success: 1) As Senate Minority and Majority
leader Johnson knew the strengths and weakness of the members
of Congress and he was able to use this information to manipulate
them; 2) there was a tremendous outpouring of sympathy for Kennedy
and his programs after his death—Johnson was not at all adverse
in using his predecessor's memory to drum up support for his
legislative program; and, 3) in the 1964 election the Democratic
margin in the House increased by 38 seats and in the Senate
by two seats. The Southern Democrat-Republican coalition could
be out-voted.
Johnson's extraordinary political talents enabled him to push
through a comprehensive social program and to effect a revolution
in race relations. If it had not been for the Vietnam war Johnson
might be recognized as one of the greatest American presidents.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination in public
accommodations, and the 1965 Voting Rights Acts gave blacks
federal protection in voting. Federal aid to education was greatly
increased, Medicare was enacted. Federal housing projects were
started, the Job Corps trained disadvantaged youth for careers,
VISTA sent volunteers into decaying inner cities and poor rural
areas, and Head Start prepared poor children for school. The
Great Society increased federal spending for health, education,
and social purposes from $54 billion in 1964 to $98 billion
in 1968. And it did seem to work. In 1959, 22.4 percent of the
population had been classified by the government as "poor"
(an annual income of $3,130 for an urban family of four), by
1969 the percentage had fallen to 12.2 percent.
The Vietnam War eventually killed the Great Society. Refusing
to raise taxes, the administration eventually had to choose
between "guns or butter," and it chose guns. But the
problem was deeper than this. Johnson's programs were not sweeping
enough to accomplish the institutional reforms necessary for
permanent change. Wealth was not significantly redistributed.
In 1962 the bottom 20 percent of the families in America shared
4.6 percent of the nation's personal income, in 1968 it had
only increased to 5.7 percent (the top twenty percent decreased
their share from 45.5 percent to 40.6 percent). After the Great
Society ended the imbalance again began to increase. Between
1980 and 1984 the median family income for the bottom 40 percent
of the population, in constant 1984 dollars, fell $477 ($12,966
to $12,489) while for the top 10 percent it increased $5,085
($68,135 to $73,230).
Learning Objective:
Understand the civil rights movement.
To understand the civil rights movement two things must be
kept in mind. First, the United States' population has always
had strong racist elements in it. Second, Americans generally
believe in the creed of equality. These two contradictory factors
constantly played upon each other during the black drive for
social, economic, and political equality and they account for
many of the ambiguities in the white response. As bigoted as
Americans can be, they tend to respond to pleas to alleviate
social injustices. Anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism have significantly
declined in American society. Presently, Indians, Asians, blacks,
and Hispanics have full political rights. The discrimination
that still exists is societal (de facto), not legal (de jure).
The United States is not unique or more racist than other countries,
but when the black movement for equality came about in the late
1950s, ingrained racism would deeply effect not only the enemies
of black equality, but also its friends. The Kennedy and Johnson
administrations had to serve constituents that were diametrically
opposed to each other — urban blacks and whites. Since World
War I blacks had been moving North. They tended to settle in
urban areas like New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles
that were located in key electoral college "swing"
states. Thus, their votes counted heavily in national elections.
For example, the black urban vote effectively counterbalanced
the white southern vote that Truman lost to the Dixiecrats in
the 1948 election. As long as the civil rights movement was
confined to the South it had, in general, Northern white support.
But, as Northern blacks began to also demand equality through
affirmative action and school integration, many Northern whites
began to oppose the movement. The Republican party took advantage
of this white dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction is a significant
reason why they were able to control the presidency, with the
exception of Jimmy Carter, between 1968-1992 (Carter and Bill
Clinton are the exceptions that proves the rule. Even though
they are Southerners, more Southern whites voted against them
than for them. But, enough southern whites did vote for them
to allow them to carry some Southern states with a combined
black-white vote).
After Reconstruction legal segregation had been instituted
in the South. The Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
upheld the constitutionality of "separate but equal"
facilities for blacks and whites. Yet the black facilities were
not equal. Blacks had separate schools, water fountains, hospital
and bus waiting rooms, and bathrooms (often gasoline stations
did not have bathrooms for blacks, if they did, they were usually
unisex). They were not allowed to swim in the public swimming
pools, attend the local movie theater (or if they did they were
segregated to the balcony), or use the public library. Restaurants
and motels were for whites only. While segregation was total
in the South, it was not confined to it. Las Vegas, Nevada,
for example, refused to allow blacks to stay in its hotels or
gamble in its casinos. Legality was the difference between southern
and northern segregation. If a black tried to use a southern
public facility he had broken the law, not just a custom. In
the North segregation was preserved through segregated housing
and social pressure.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP), founded by, among others, W.E.B. Dubois, had been working
for black rights since the early 1900s. By the 1950s the NAACP
believed the time was ripe for an all-out attack on segregation.
Many blacks had gone into World War II with the idea of a "double
V for victory" — victory over the Axis and victory over
segregation. The successful integration of the armed forces
during the Korean War proved that blacks and whites could work
together. The Cold War made segregation an embarrassment to
the national government in its fight against Communism. The
movement of blacks from the South, where they were disfranchised,
to the North, where they could vote, gave them increased political
power.
The NAACP challenged school segregation in the courts, and
in May, 1954 The Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education
of Topeka reversed the Plessy decision, stating "that in
the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but
equal' has no place. The Court was correct in its statement
that "Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."
The state of Mississippi was a prime example. Although blacks
comprised over 50 percent of the school age population, in the
1960-61 school year the state spent $46 million on white education
versus $26 million for black education. Nine counties in Mississippi
did not even have a black high school. As late as 1950, Mississippi
employed over 700 black teachers who had not completed high
school. Ten years after the Brown decision, a black teacher
in Mississippi with a bachelor's degree made $350 less than
a white teacher with identical credentials. Mississippi, like
most southern states, required a literacy test to register to
vote. And, as the U.S. Civil Rights Commission reported in 1965:
"The quality of education afford Negroes has been so poor
that any test of educational skill as a prerequisite to voting
would necessarily discriminate against them."
The Court ordered school districts to integrate with "all
deliberate speed." The border states moved toward compliance,
but the deep south states resisted bitterly. In 1964, Arkansas,
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina had less than
one percent of their school age blacks in school with whites.
It took a 1968 Supreme Court decision before the Court finally
declared that "all deliberate speed" meant "at
once." Yet, as late as 1970, over 18 percent of the south's
black children were still in segregated schools, and almost
62 percent went to schools over half black.
Using the Brown decision as a catalyst, blacks began to work
actively for the right to vote in the South and the right to
use public facilities. Beginning in December, 1955, under the
leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, blacks boycotted the
Montgomery, Alabama's segregated bus system. When the boycott
succeeded King went on to lead other attacks on segregation
and, until his April 1968 assassination, he was the movement's
most influential spokesman.
After the election of John F. Kennedy the movement picked up
momentum, and as black discontent grew (Kennedy's rhetoric for
black rights far outpaced his actions), there was a comparable
increase in Southern resistance. The Civil Rights Commission
reported in 1963, "Citizens of the United States have been
shot, set upon by vicious dogs, beaten and otherwise terrorized
because they sought to vote." Less dramatic than violence,
but even more effective, was economic intimidation. Since the
vast majority of jobs in the South were controlled by whites
it was easy for Southern racists to insure that blacks who attempted
to register to vote or who were active in the desegregation
movement lost their jobs.
In August, 1963, a quarter of a million blacks and whites marched
on Washington demanding black equality. After the death of Kennedy,
Johnson was able to get the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed that
forbade discrimination in public accommodations, and the 1965
Voting Rights Act which insured blacks the right to vote. In
1964 the 24th Amendment to the Constitution made the poll tax
illegal. Legal discrimination had ended in the United States,
but economic and social discrimination continue.
The introduction of chemical weed killers in the early 1950s
permitted the economical use of tractors and mechanical cotton
pickers on Southern plantations. Southern black hand labor was
no longer needed and millions of uneducated, unskilled blacks
were thrown off the plantations and many of them moved North.
At the same time that blacks were moving North, whites were
moving out of the cities into the suburbs and blacks replaced
them as the occupants of the inner cities. In the 1950s segregation
still existed in the North and the black ghetto was vertically
integrated. Blacks of all classes and level of education and
achievement lived there — doctors, lawyers, teachers, entrepreneurs,
persons of strong religious feeling, as well as lower-income
groups. Ironically, black gains in integrating housing killed
this situation. Now there are few role models in the community.
The black middle class no longer lives in the inner city and
the stable working class is moving out as rapidly as possible.
Although the majority of blacks are doing markedly better than
they were before the civil rights movement, one-third are still
below the poverty line. And for a core group of 2 million to
3.5 million chronically poor and alienated inner city and southern
rural blacks, conditions seem to be deteriorating, with no improvement
in sight. This group at the bottom — an underclass — seems
beyond the reach of existing social programs, and may be growing.
Its plight can be captured by statistics:
