:
~
:
The Eisenhower Era,
1952-1960
We must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
Prologue: War hero Dwight D. Eisenhower ascended triumphantly to the White
House in 1953. Worried about the budget-busting implications of President Harry Truman's military buildup, Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles tried to
define a new strategic doctrine. It emphasized "massive retaliation" with nuclear
weapons against the Soviets if they dared to break the peace. At the same time, Eisenhower took some hesitant steps toward promoting nuclear disarmament, although he
proved unable to thaw the Cold War with Russia. After Stalin's death in 1953, the more
subtle Nikita Khrushchev emerged as the undisputed Soviet leader. The Soviet Union
matched the U.S. hydrogen bomb in 1953, and tensions further heightened in 1956
when the Soviets crushed an uprising in Hungary and backed President Nasser of
Egypt during the Suez explosion. The Soviets jolted the Americans in 1957 by shooting
two satellites-Sputniks-into earth orbit. Eisenhower's administration, like Truman's,
was badgered and embarrassed by the anticommunist crusade of Senator Joe McCarthy. McCarthyism cruelly wounded many individuals and left scars on the body
politic that took decades to heal. The Supreme Court in 1954 ordered the desegregation of schools, notably in the South. The white South at first resisted massively, but the
Court's decision imparted momentum to the rising wave of the civil rights movement,
which was to crest in the 1960s. Americans knew unprecedented prosperity in the
1950s, but affluence had its critics. Many of them came to power when the New Frontier arrived with the election of Senator John F. Kennedy to the presidency in 1960.
A ANewLook~fure~nPo~Y~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I. Secretary john Foster Dulles Warns
of Massive Retaliation ( 1954)
In 1950, NSC-68 (seep . 420) had proposed an enormous, and enormously costly,
program of U.S. military expansion to support a tougher foreign policy in the Cold
1
State Department Bulletin 30 (January 25, 1954): 107-110.
430
A. A New Look in Foreign Policy
431
War. Although Republican critics admired the toughness of Truman 's and Acheson's
policies, they choked on the price tag. Accordingly, the new secretary of state, john
Foster Dulles, announced in 1954 that the United States would henceforward rely
less on conventional military forces and more on "massive retaliation" with nuclear
bombs to support its international policies. In fact, the policy of massive retaliation
proved scarcely less expensive and considerably less practical than reliance on an
array of conventional military means. (It was impossible, for example, to imagine
incinerating Moscow with atomic bombs in order to induce the Soviet Union to halt
the invasion of Hungary in 1956.) Dulles announced the new doctrine in the following speech ofjanuary 12, 1954. What were his chief criticisms of the foreign policy of his predecessors? What did he see as the advantages of the massive retaliation
doctrine? In the light of history, how successful was "massive retaliation " in the examples that Dulles cites-in Korea, Indochina, Germany, and Austria? Was the
arms race actually accelerated by the desire to buy security on the cheap?
It is now nearly a year since the Eisenhower administration took office. During
that year I have often spoken of various parts of our foreign policies. Tonight I
should like to present an overall view of those policies which relate to our security.
First of all, let us recognize that many of the preceding foreign policies were
good. Aid to Greece and Turkey had checked the Communist drive to the Mediterranean. The European Recovery Program had helped the peoples of Western Europe to pull out of the postwar morass. The Western powers were steadfast in Berlin
and overcame the blockade with their airlift. As a loyal member of the United Nations, we had reacted with force to repel the Communist attack in Korea. When that
effort exposed our military weakness; we rebuilt rapidly our military establishment.
We also sought a quick buildup of armed strength in Western Europe.
These were the acts of a nation which saw the danger of Soviet communism;
which realized that its own safety was tied up with that of others; which was capable of responding boldly and promptly to emergencies. These are precious values to
be acclaimed. Also, we can pay tribute to congressional bipartisanship which puts
the nation above politics.
But we need to recall that what we did was in the main emergency action, imposed on us by our enemies.
Let me illustrate.
1. We did not send our army into Korea because we judged in advance that
it was sound military strategy to commit our Army to fight land battles in Asia. Our
decision had been to pull out of Korea. It was Soviet-inspired action that pulled
us back.
2. We did not decide in advance that it was wise to grant billions annually as
foreign economic aid. We adopted that policy in response to the Communist efforts
to sabotage the free economies of Western Europe.
3. We did not build up our military establishment at a rate which involved huge
budget deficits, a depreciating currency, and a feverish economy because this
seemed, in advance, a good policy. Indeed, we decided otherwise until the Soviet
military threat was clearly revealed.
We live in a world where emergencies are always possible and our survival may
depend upon our capacity to meet emergencies. Let us pray that we shall always
432
Chapter 37
1be Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
have that capacity. But, having said that, it is necessary also to say that emergency
measures-however good for the emergency-do not necessarily make good permanent policies. Emergency measures are costly; they are superficial; and they imply
that the enemy has the initiative. They cannot be depended on to serve our longtime interests.
This "long time" factor is of critical importance.
The Soviet Communists are planning for what they call "an entire historical era,"
and we should do the same. They seek, through many types of maneuvers, gradually to divide and weaken the free nations by overextending them in efforts which,
as Lenin put it, are "beyond their strength, so that they come to practical bankruptcy. " Then, said Lenin, "our victory is assured." Then, said Stalin, will be "the
moment for the decisive blow."
In the face of this strategy, measures cannot be judged adequate merely because they ward off an immediate danger. It is essential to do this, but it is also
essential to do so without exhausting ourselves.
When the Eisenhower administration applied this test, we felt that some transformations were needed.
It is not sound military strategy permanently to commit U.S. land forces to Asia
to a degree that leaves us no strategic reserves.
It is not sound economics, or good foreign policy, to support permanently other
countries; for in the long run, that creates as much ill will as good will.
Also, it is not sound to become permanently committed to military expenditures
so vast that they lead to "practical bankruptcy. " ...
What the Eisenhower administration seeks is a ... maximum deterrent at a
bearable cost. ...
The total cost of our security efforts, at home and abroad, was over $50 billion
per annum, and involved, for 1953, a projected budgetary deficit of $9 billion; and
$11 billion for 1954. This was on top of taxes comparable to wartime taxes; and the
dollar was depreciating in effective value. Our allies were similarly weighed down.
This could not be continued for long without grave budgetary, economic, and social
consequences.
But before military planning could be changed, the President and his advisers,
as represented by the National Security Council, had to take some basic policy decisions. This has been done. The basic decision was to depend primarily upon a
great capacity to retaliate, instantly, by means and at places of our choosing. Now
the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff can shape our military establishment to fit what is our policy, instead of having to try to be ready to meet the
enemy's many choices. That permits of a selection of military means instead of a
multiplication of means. As a result, it is now possible to get, and share, more basic
security at less cost.
Let us now see how this concept has been applied to foreign policy, taking first
the Far East.
In Korea this administration effected a major transformation. The fighting has
been stopped on honorable terms. That was possible because the aggressor, already
thrown back to and behind his place of beginning, was faced with the possibility
that the fighting might, to his own great peril, soon spread beyond the limits and
methods which he had selected ....
A. A New Look in Foreign Policy
433
I have said in relation to Indochina that, if there were open Red Chinese army
aggression there, that would have "grave consequences which might not be confined to Indochina."
I expressed last month the intention of the United States to maintain its position
in Okinawa. This is needed to insure adequate striking power to implement the collective security concept which I describe . . . .
We have persisted, with our allies, in seeking the unification of Germany and
the liberation of Austria. Now the Soviet rulers have agreed to discuss these questions. We expect to meet them soon in Berlin. I hope they will come with sincerity
which will equal our own.
We have sought a conference to unify Korea and relieve it of foreign troops. So
far, our persistence is unrewarded; but we have not given up.
These efforts at negotiation are normal initiatives that breathe the spirit of freedom. They involve no plan for a partnership division of world power with those
who suppress freedom ... .
2. President Eisenhower Calls fo r
"Open Skies" ( 1955)
Tbe end of hostilities in Korea in 1953, Stalin 's death in the same year, and the withdrawal of Soviet occupation forces from Austria in early 1955 brought a welcome
thaw to the Cold War. Trying to take advantage of this period of apparently relaxed
tensions, President Eisenhower agreed to a summit meeting with Soviet leaders in
july 1955 at Geneva. Tbere he proposed a straightforward first step toward the ultimate goal of reducing the size of military arsenals, especially the fearsome stockpiles
of nuclear weapons. How realistic was Eisenhower's plan? Why did the Soviets not
agree to it? What other approaches might have been tried?
Disarmament is one of the most important subjects on our agenda. It is also extremely difficult. In recent years the scientists have discovered methods of making
weapons many, many times more destructive of opposing armed forces-but also of
homes, and industries and lives-than ever known or even imagined before. These
same scientific discoveries have made much more complex the problems of limitation and control and reduction of armament. ...
The United States government is prepared to enter into a sound and reliable
agreement making possible the reduction of armament. I have directed that an intensive and thorough study of this subject be made within our own government. ...
No sound and reliable agreement can be made unless it is completely covered
by an inspection and reporting system adequate to support every portion of the
agreement.
The lessons of history teach us that disarmament agreements without adequate
reciprocal inspection increase the dangers of war and do not brighten the prospects
of peace.
2
The Public Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1955 (Washington, D.C. : National Archives
and Records Service, 1956), pp. 713-716.
434
Chapter 37
Tbe Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
Thus it is my view that the priority attention of our combined study of disarmament should be upon the subject of inspection and reporting .. ..
Gentlemen, since I have been working on this memorandum to present to this
Conference, I have been searching my heart and mind for something that I could
say here that could convince everyone of the great sincerity of the United States in
approaching this problem of disarmament.
I should address myself for a moment principally to the delegates from the Soviet Union , because our two great countries admittedly possess new and terrible
weapons in quantities which do give rise in other parts of the world, or reciprocally,
to the fears and dangers of surprise attack.
I propose, therefore, that we take a practical step, that we begin an arrangement, very quickly, as between ourselves-immediately. These steps would include:
To give to each other a complete blueprint of our military establishments, from
beginning to end, from one end of our countries to the other; lay out the establishments and provide the blueprints to each other.
Next, to provide within our countries facilities for aerial photography to the
other country- we to provide you the facilities within our country, ample facilities
for aerial reconnaissance, where you can make all the pictures you choose and take
them to your own country to study, you to provide exactly the same facilities for us
and we to make these examinations, and by this step to convince the world that we
are providing as between ourselves against the possibility of great surprise attack,
thus lessening danger and relaxing tension. Likewise we will make more easily attainable a comprehensive and effective system of inspection and disarmament, because what I propose, I assure you, would be but a beginning ....
a
TheM~art~H~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~-
I. joseph McCarthy Upholds Guilt
by Association (I 952)
Senator joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin, hitherto unknown to fame, rocketed into
the headlines in 1950 when he declared in a political speech that there were scores
of known communists in the State Department.* Tbe collapse ofJiang's China and
the bloodily indecisive Korean War gave point to his charges, while accelerating the
hunt for scapegoats. Afew "pinks" and communist sympathizers were exposed and
driven out of government. But persons with liberal or nonconformist ideas were indiscriminately branded as communists, with a subsequent loss of reputation and
jobs. In McCarthy's view, birds that waddled like ducks, quacked like ducks, and
1
Quoted from Senator Joseph McCarthy, McCarthyism: Tbe Fight for America (New York: Devin-Adair
Company, 1952), pp. 7, 79-80.
*Webster's Third International Dictionary (1961) defines McCarthyism as "a political attitude of the midtwentieth century closely allied to know-nothingism, and characterized chiefly by opposition to elements
held to be subversive, and by the use of tactics involving personal attacks on individuals by means of
widely publicized indiscriminate allegations, especially on the basis of unsubstantiated charges."
B. The McCarthy Hysteria
435
associated with ducks were presumed to be ducks. Anti-McCarthyites cited the axiom
that it was better to let ten guilty men escape than to condemn one innocent man.
McCarthy here defends his tactics. How convincing is he?
One of the safest and most popular sports engaged in today by every politician
and office seeker is to "agree with McCarthy's aim of getting rid of Communists in
government, " but at the same time to "condemn his irresponsible charges and shotgun technique. " It is a completely safe position to take . The Communist Party and
their camp followers in press and radio do not strike back as long as you merely
condemn Communism in general terms. It is only when one adopts an effective
method of digging out and exposing the under-cover dangerous, "sacred cow"
Communists that all of the venom and smear of the Party is loosed upon him.
I suggest to you, therefore, that when a politician mounts the speaker's rostrum
and makes the statement that he "agrees with McCarthy's aims but not his methods,"
that you ask him what methods he himself has used against Communists. I suggest
you ask him to name a single Communist or camp follower that he has forced out
of the government by his methods ....
Is not a person presumed innocent until proven guilty?
Yes.
W'hy do you condemn people like Acheson, jessup, Lattimore, Service, Vincent,*
and others who have never been convicted of any crime?
The fact that these people have not been convicted of treason or of violating
some of our espionage laws is no more a valid argument that they are fit to represent
this country in its fight against Communism than the argument that a person who
has a reputation of consorting with criminals, hoodlums, gamblers, and kidnappers
is fit to act as your baby sitter because he has never been convicted of a crime.
A government job is a privilege, not a right. There is no reason why men who
chum with Communists, who refuse to turn their backs upon traitorst and who are consistently found at the time and place where disaster strikes America and success comes
to international Communism, should be given positions of power in government. ...
I have not urged that those whom I have named be put in jail. Once they are exposed so the American people know what they are, they can do but little damage ....
Strangely enough, those who scream the loudest about what they call guilt by
association are the first to endorse innocence by association.
For example, those who object most strongly to my showing Jessup's affinity for
Communist causes, the Communist money used to support the publication over
which he had control, and his close friendship and defense of a Communist spy [Hiss],
also argue Hiss' innocence by association. The argument is that Hiss was innocent because Justices Frankfurter and Reed testified they were friends of his, because Acheson chummed and walked with him each morning, because Hiss was the top planner
at the United Nations conference and helped to draft the Yalta agreement.
*Professors Philip C. Jessup and Owen Lattimore were prominent officials or advisers who were allegedly
"soft" on communism; JohnS . Service and John C. Vincent were foreign service officers similarly branded
by McCarthy.
tAfter State Department official Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury in connection with Soviet espionage,
his friend Secretary of State Acheson loyally but indiscreetly declared, "I do not intend to turn my back
[on him] ."
436
Chapter 37
The Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
We are not concerned with GUILT by association because here we are not concerned with convicting any individual of any crime. We are concerned with the
question of whether the individual who associates with those who are trying to destroy this nation, should be admitted to the high councils of those planning the policies of this nation: whether they should be given access to top secret material to
which even Senators and Congressmen are not given access.
2. A Senator Speaks Up ( 1950)
The infiltration of a few communists into government was perhaps inevitable, but
the embarrassed Truman administration played into the hands of the McCarthyites
by its cover-up tactics. In the interests offree debate, the Constitution exempts from
libel suits anything that may be said on the floor of Congress. Senator McCarthy
clearly abused this privilege. At a time when he was riding high and many Republicans regarded him as a political asset, the tall and gray-haired Republican Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, the only female U.S. senator, courageously spoke out
against his excesses.* (Later McCarthy vindictively invaded Maine in an unsuccessful effort to defeat her for reelection.) Why does she believe that McCarthy's tactics,
whatever his aims, are contrary to the Constitution and basically un-American?
I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its Members to do
some real soul searching, and to weigh out consciences as to the manner in which
we are performing our duty to the people of America, and the manner in which we
are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges.
I think it is high time that we remembered that we have sworn to uphold and
defend the Constitution. I think it is high time that we remembered that the Constitution, as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech but also of trial by
jury instead of trial by accusation.
Whether it be a criminal prosecution in court or a character prosecution in the
Senate, there is little practical distinction when the life of a person has been ruined.
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore
some of the basic principles of AmericanismThe right to criticize.
The right to hold unpopular beliefs.
The right to protest.
The right of independent thought.
The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his
reputation or his right to a livelihood, nor should he be in danger of losing his
reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds
unpopular beliefs. Who of us does not? Otherwise none of us could call our souls
our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in.
2
Congressional Record, 81st Cong., 2d sess. (June 1, 1950), pp. 7894-7895.
*Senator Smith simultaneously presented "a Declaration of Conscience" signed by six fellow senators.
B . The McCarthy Hysteria
437
The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest
they be politically smeared as Communists or Fascists by their opponents. Freedom
of speech is not what it used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that
it is not exercised by others.
The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and
guilty people whitewashed. But there have been enough proved cases, such as the
Amerasia case, the Hiss case, the Coplon case, the Gold case,* to cause nation-wide
distrust and strong suspicion that there may be something to the unproved, sensational accusations .. ..
Today our country is being psychologically divided by the confusion and the
suspicions that are bred in the United States Senate to spread like cancerous tentacles of "know nothing, suspect everything" attitudes ....
As a United States Senator, I am not proud of the way in which the Senate has
been made a publicity platform for irresponsible sensationalism. I am not proud of
the reckless abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this [Republican] side of the aisle. I am not proud of the obviously staged, undignified
countercharges which have been attempted in retaliation from the other [Democratic] side of the aisle.
I do not like the way the Senate has been made a rendezvous for vilification, for
selfish political gain at the sacrifice of individual reputations and national unity. I am
not proud of the way we smear outsiders from the floor of the Senate and hide behind the cloak of congressional immunity, and still place ourselves beyond criticism
on the floor of the Senate.
As an American, I am shocked at the way Republicans and Democrats alike are
playing directly into the Communist design of "confuse, divide, and conquer." As an
American, I do not want a Democratic administration whitewash or cover-up any
more than I want a Republican smear or witch hunt.
As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a
Democratic Communist. I condemn a Democratic Fascist just as much as I condemn
a Republican Communist. They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our
country. As an American, I want to see our Nation recapture the strength and unity
it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.
3. McCarthy Inspires Fear at Harvard ( 1954)
Senator McCarthy overplayed his hand, notably in the televised investigation of the
army. To millions of viewers he exposed his vindictiveness, arrogance, and intellectual
dishonesty. Apologists claimed that his anticommunist zeal, whether sincere or not,
destroyed all sense offair play. His bubble burst when the Senate "condemned" him
*Amerasia was a communist-tainted magazine that acquired confidential government documents. Judith
Coplon, a Justice Department employee, and Harry Gold, a Philadelphia biochemist, were both convicted
in 1950 of spying for the Soviet Union.
3Cited in Congressional Record, 83d Cong., 2d sess., p. A6909. Reprinted by permission of the Harvard
Crimson. The letters appeared in the issues of November 24 and 30, 1954. The Richardson letter ended in
the Crimson with four dots after "crowd"; the five missing lines are published in the Congressional Record.
438
Chapter 37
Tbe Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
in 1954 by a formal vote-not, curiously enough, for his abuses of U.S. citizens but
for his contemptuous attitude toward the Senate itself A petition urging the censure
of McCarthy was circulated at Harvard University, and two undergraduates who
refused to sign it gave their reasons in the first of the following letters to the Harvard
Crimson. An English-born student named]. C. P. Richardson, who was backing
the petition, took sharp issue with them in the second letter. Who had the sounder
position?
To the Editors of the Crimson:
This afternoon my roommate and I were asked to sign a petition advocating the
censure of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. We both refused. And yet, we both hope
that the censure motion is adopted.
Discussing our actions, we came to the conclusion that we did not sign because
we were afraid that sometime in the future McCarthy will point to us as having
signed the petition, and, as he had done to others, question our loyalty.
We are afraid that of the thousands of petition signers, one will be proved a
Communist, and as a result, McCarthy, or someone like him, will say, because we
were both co-signers and classmates of the Communist, that we, too, are Reds.
The fact that two college students and others like us will not sign a petition for
fear of reprisal indicates only too clearly that our democracy is in danger. It is clear
that McCarthy is suppressing free speech and free actions by thrusting fear into the
hearts of innocent citizens.
Let us hope that the Senators of the United States are not victims of the same
fear that has infected us.
K. w L. '58
M. F G. '58
To the Editors of the Crimson:
The letter sent to you by two Harvard students and published yesterday can
safely be said to represent the viewpoint of about one half of those who did not
sign the anti-McCarthy petition.
The position taken by the authors is common and understandable, but it is by
no means justifiable. In a free society, when opinions become unpopular and dangerous, it is most important that they be expressed. To yield to the climate of fear, to
become a scared liberal, is to strengthen the very forces which one opposes.
Courage must complement conviction, for otherwise each man will become a
rubber-stamp, content to spend the rest of his life echoing popular beliefs, never
daring to dissent, never having enough courage to say what he thinks, and never living as an individual, but only as part of the crowd.
Yes, our democracy is in danger, but as long as men are not afraid to express
their view in spite of the consequences, it shall flourish. Only when fear is allowed
to limit dissension does democracy falter.
The blame for America's present intellectual intolerance rests as heavily on
those who have bowed to it as it does on those who encourage it.
Sincerely,
]. C. Peter Richardson '56
439
B. The McCarthy Hysteria
4. The Soviets "Develop"American Spies ( 1944)
The red scare of the post- World War II era often assumed the character of a witch
hunt, but the fear of communist espionage was not altogether unfounded. The Soviet
Union actively employed American citizens to collect information on the most sensitive matters of national security-including the atomic bomb project. Many Soviet
spies had ties to the Communist party of the United States and were ideologally sympathetic to the Soviet cause.
In a secret project dubbed "Venona, " American intelligence officials intercepted
and decoded num-erous messages sent between Moscow and Soviet operatives in the
United States. Those documents, finally released to the public in 1995, reveal the extent of the espionage network and shed new light on the American concern about
communist infiltration. Yet, while the documents point to the existence of many Soviet
spies, critics charge that the specific identities of those spies remain difficult to establish.
American officials often had to rely on circumstantial evidence to identify the person
behind the code name. Among the people implicated by Venona were julius and Ethel
Rosenberg, the only two American civilians executed for conspiracy to commit espionage during the Cold War. Their highly publicized trial in 1951-during which
Ethel's own brother, David Greenglass, testified against them-became one of the
iconic moments in the United States ' decades-long confrontation with communism.
The telegram printed here was sent by a Soviet agent in New York to an official in
Moscow. The footnotes were added by the American decoders and represent their conclusions as to the meaning of various code names. The document shows the effort of
liBERAL (whom American intelligence officials identify as julius Rosenberg in footnote ii) to recruit other possible spies-including Ethel Rosenberg's sister-in-law, Ruth
Greenglass. It also suggests the Soviets' preoccupation with ENORMOUS, apparently their
code name for the atomic bomb project (see footnote vi). At the time of this telegram, the
Soviet Union and the United States were allies in the war against Nazi Germany. Why,
then, would the Soviets go to such lengths to spy on American operations?
Reissue (T1362)
From:
NEW YORK
To:
MOSCOW
No :
L34C
21 September 1 9 44
To VIKTOR [i].
Lately the development of new people [D% has been in
progress]. LIBERAL[ii] recommended the wife of his wife ' s
brother, Ruth GREENGLASS, with a safe flat in view. She is
21 years old, a TOWNSWOMAN [GOROZhANKA] [iii], a GYMNAST
[FIZKUL'TURNITsA] [iv] since 1942 . She lives on STANTON [STANTAUN] Street. LIBERAL and his wife recommend her as an intelligent and clever girl.
[15 groups unrecoverable]
4Robert
Louis Benson and Michael Warner, eds., Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response,
1939-1957 (Laguna Hills, Calif. : Aegean Park Press, 1996), pp. 341-342.
440
Chapter 37
The Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
[C? Ruth] learned that her husband[v] was called up by the army
but he was not sent to the front. He is a mechanical engineer
and is now working at the ENORMOUS [ENORMOZ] [vi] plant in
SANTA FE, New Mexico.
[45 groups unrecoverable]
detain VOLOK[vii] who is working in a plant on ENORMOUS. He is a
FELLOWCOUNTRYMAN [ZEMLYaK] [viii]. Yesterday he learned that they
had dismissed him from his work. His active work in progressive
organizations in the past was the cause of his dismissal.
In the FELLOWCOUNTRYMAN line LIBERAL is in touch with
CHESTER[ix]. They meet once a month for the payment of dues.
CHESTER is interested in whether we are satisfied with the
collaboration and whether there are not any misunderstandings.
He does not inquire about specific items of work [KONKRETNAYa
RABOTA] . In as much as CHESTER knows about the role of
LIBERAL's group we beg consent to ask C. through LIBERAL about
leads from among people who are working on ENORMOUS and in
other technical fields.
Your no. 4256[a]. On making further enquiries and checking
on LARIN[x] we received from the FELLOWCOUNTRYMEN through
EKhO[xi] a character sketch which says that they do not
entirely vouch for him. They base this statement on the fact
that in the Federation LARIN does not carry out all the orders
received from the leadership. He is stubborn and self-willed.
On the strength of this we have decided to refrain from
approaching LARIN and intend to find another candidate in FAECT
[FAKhiT] [xii].
No 751
20 September
Notes: [a]
Comments:
[i]
[ii]
[iii]
[iv]
[v]
[vi]
[vii]
[viii]
[ix]
[x]
[xi]
[xii]
[xiii]
MAJ[xiii]
Not available.
VIKTOR: Lt. Gen. P. M. FITIN.
LIBERAL: Julius ROSENBERG.
GOROZhANKA: American citizen.
FIZKUL'TURNITsA: Probably a Member of the Young
Communist League.
i.e. David GREENGLASS.
ENORMOZ: Atomic Energy Project.
VOLOK:
ZEMLYak: Member of the Communist Party.
CHESTER: Communist Party name of Bernard
SCHUSTER.
LARIN: Unidentified.
EKhO: i.e. ECHO, Bernard SCHUSTER.
FAKhiT: Federation of Architects, Chemists,
Engineers and Technicians. See also NEW YORK's
message no. 911 of 27 June 1944.
MAJ: i.e. MAY, Stepan APRESYaN.
C. The Supreme Court and the Black Revolution
441
C. The Supreme Court and the Black Revolution _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ __
I. The Court Rejects Segregation ( 1954)
The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) had made African Americans citizens and assured them "the equal protection of the laws. " The southern states established "separate but equal" facilities in the schools, public toilets, and transportation. In many
instances, however, the facilities for blacks, though "separate, " were not "equal" to
those for whites. In 1892 a Louisianan by the name of Plessy, of one-eighth African
descent, was jailed for insisting on sitting in a railroad car reserved for whites. The
case was appealed to the Supreme Court, where Plessy lost by a seven-to-one vote (see
p. 58). The Court held that separate but equal public conveyances did not violate
the Fourteenth Amendment. This principle was applied to educational facilities until
May 17, 1954, when the Supreme Court, by a nine-to-zero vote, reversed its basic
policy and decreed that separate educational facilities were not equal within the
meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the heart of the decision given here, what
ground is there for the white southern complaint that this was a sociological rather
than a legal decision? Are separateness and inequality inseparable?
In approaching this problem, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868 when the
[Fourteenth] Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896 when Plessy v. Ferguson was
written. We must consider public education in the light of its full development and
its present place in American life throughout the Nation. Only in this way can it be
determined if segregation in public schools deprives the plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws.
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our
democratic ~ociety. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values,
in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably
be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such
an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must
be made available to all on equal terms.
We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other
"tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal
educational opportunities? We believe that it does . ...
Such considerations apply with added force to children in grade and high
schools. To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications, solely because of their race, generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community
1
Brown v. Board of Education ofTopeka, 347 U.S. 492-495 (1954) .
442
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Tbe Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. The effect of this separation on their educational opportunities was well stated by a finding in the Kansas case by a court which nevertheless felt compelled to rule against
the Negro plaintiffs:
"Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental
effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of
the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the
inferiority of the Negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child
to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard]
the educational and mental development of Negro children, and to deprive them of
some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system. "
Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of
Plessy v. Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority. Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected.
We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of "separate but
equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions
have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the
equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. One Hundred Representatives Dissent ( 1956)
Chief justice Earl Warren, a gray-haired, open-faced California governor turned
judge, had already come under some .fire for his liberal views. Bitter was the outcry
of white southerners against the "Earl Warren Communist Court. " Although the desegregation decision called for gradual implementation, the social upheaval that it
foreshadowed was enormous. One hundred southern members of Congress-nineteen
senators and eighty-one House members-issued the following manifesto in 1956.
Tbe .first part of it declared that since the Constitution does not mention education,
the schools are solely the concern of the states under reserved powers (Tenth Amendment). How persuasive is the manifesto 's contention that the Court's decision would
worsen, rather than improve, race relations?
In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, in 1896, the Supreme Court expressly declared
that under the Fourteenth Amendment no person was denied any of his rights if the
states provided separate but equal public facilities. This decision has been followed in
many other cases. It is notable that the Supreme Court, speaking through Chief Justice
Taft, a former President of the United States, unanimously declared in 1927 in Lum v.
Rice that the "separate but equal" principle is "... within the discretion of the state in
regulating its public schools and does not conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment. "
This interpretation, restated time and time again, became a part of the life of the
people of many of the states and confirmed their habits, customs, traditions, and
way of life. It is founded on elemental humanity and common sense, for parents
should not be deprived by Government of the right to direct the lives and education
of their own children.
2
Congressional Record, 84th Cong., 2d sess. (March 12, 1956), pp. 4515-4516.
C. The Supreme Court and the Black Revolution
443
Though there has been no constitutional amendment or act of Congress changing their established legal principle almost a century old, the Supreme Court of the
United States, with no legal basis for such action, undertook to exercise their naked
judicial power and substituted their personal political and social ideas for the established law of the land.
This unwarranted exercise of power by the court, contrary to the Constitution,
is creating chaos and confusion in the states principally affected. It is destroying the
amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created
through ninety years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has
planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and
understanding.
Without regard to the consent of the governed, outside agitators are threatening
immediate and revolutionary changes in our public school systems. If done, this is
certain to destroy the system of public education in some of the states.
With the gravest concern for the explosive and dangerous conditions created by
this decision and inflamed by outside meddlers:
We reaffirm our reliance on the Constitution as the fundamental law of the land.
We decry the Supreme Court's encroachments on rights reserved to the states
and to the people, contrary to established law and to the Constitution.
We commend the motives of those states which have declared the intention to
resist forced integration by any lawful means.
We appeal to the states and people who are not directly affected by these decisions to consider the constitutional principles involved against the time when they
too, on issues vital to them, may be the victims of judicial encroachment.
Even though we constitute a minority in the present Congress, we have full faith
that a majority of the American people believe in the dual system of government which
has enabled us to achieve our greatness and will in time demand that the reserved
rights of the states and of the people be made secure against judicial usurpation.
We pledge ourselves to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision, which is contrary to the Constitution, and to prevent the use of force in its
implementation.
In this trying period, as we all seek to right this wrong, we appeal to our people not to be provoked by the agitators and troublemakers invading our states and
to scrupulously refrain from disorder and lawless acts.
3. Eisenhower Sends Federal Troops ( 1957)
Following the school-desegregation decision of the "Earl Warren Court, " southern
white resistance mounted. A showdown occurred in the autumn of 1957, when
angry mobs in Little Rock, Arkansas, prevented nine black pupils from attending the
all-white Central High School. When the governor of the state refused to provide
proper protection, President Eisenhower backed up the federal court by sending in
federal troops. Under their protective bayonets the African American pupils attended
the school, despite disagreeable incidents. Tbe ugly episode became a hot issue in the
3 Vital
Speeches 24 (October 15, 1957): 11-12 (address of September 24, 1957).
444
Chapter 37
The Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
Cold War. Little Rock rapidly became the best-known U.S. city as communist propagandists had a field day, ignoring the fact that the federal government was trying to
help the blacks. President Eisenhower addressed the American people on a nationwide radio and television hookup, explaining why he had regretfully resorted to
drastic action. Was he on sound legal ground? W'hy was he concerned about the foreign implications of the affair?
For a few minutes this evening I want to talk to you about the serious situation
that has arisen in Little Rock. To make this talk I have come to the President's office
in the White House. I could have spoken from Rhode Island, where I have been
staying recently, but I felt that, in speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson,
and of Wilson, my words would better convey both the sadness I feel in the action
I was compelled today to take and the firmness with which I intend to pursue this
course until the orders of the Federal Court at Little Rock can be executed without
unlawful interference.
In that city, under the leadership of demagogic extremists, disorderly mobs have
deliberately prevented the carrying out of proper orders from a Federal Court. Local
authorities have not eliminated that violent opposition and, under the law, I yesterday issued a Proclamation calling upon the mob to disperse.
This morning the mob again gathered in front of the Central High School of
Little Rock, obviously for the purpose of again preventing the carrying out of the
Court's order relating to the admission of Negro children to that school.
Whenever normal agencies prove inadequate to the task and it becomes necessary for the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to use its powers and authority to uphold Federal Courts, the President's responsibility is inescapable.
In accordance with that responsibility, I have today issued an Executive Order
directing the use of troops under Federal authority to aid in the execution of Federal
law at Little Rock, Arkansas. This became necessary when my Proclamation of yesterday was not observed, and the obstruction of justice still continues ....
Our personal opinions about the decision have no bearing on the matter of enforcement; the responsibility and authority of the Supreme Court to interpret the
Constitution are very clear....
Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.
Now, let me make it very clear that Federal troops are not being used to relieve
local and state authorities of their primary duty to preserve the peace and order of
the community. Nor are the troops there for the purpose of taking over the responsibility of the School Board and the other responsible local officials in running Central High School. The running of our school system and the maintenance of peace
and order in each of our states are strictly local affairs, and the Federal Government
does not interfere, except in very special cases and when requested by one of the
several states. In the present case the troops are there, pursuant to law, solely for the
purpose of preventing interference with the orders of the Court ....
In the South, as elsewhere, citizens are keenly aware of the tremendous disservice that has been done to the people of Arkansas in the eyes of the nation, and that
has been done to the nation in the eyes of the world.
At a time when we face grave situations abroad because of the hatred that Communism bears toward a system of government based on human rights, it would be
C. The Supreme Court and the Black Revolution
445
difficult to exaggerate the harm that is being done to the prestige and influence and,
indeed, to the safety of our nation and the world.
Our enemies are gloating over this incident and using it everywhere to misrepresent our whole nation. We are portrayed as a violator of those standards of conduct which the peoples of the world united to proclaim in the Charter of the United
Nations. There they affirmed "faith in fundamental human rights" and "in the dignity
and worth of the human person," and they did so "without distinction as to race,
sex, language, or religion."
And so, with deep confidence, I call upon citizens of the State of Arkansas to assist in bringing to an immediate end all interference with the law and its processes.
If resistance to the Federal Court order ceases at once, the further presence of Federal troops will be unnecessary and the city of Little Rock will return to its normal
habits of peace and order-and a blot upon the fair name and high honor of our
nation will be removed.
Thus will be restored the image of America and of all its parts as one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
4. The Arkansas Democrat Protests ( 1958)
Occupying federal troops-the .first in the South since 1877-remained eight months,
until the nine African American pupils could attend the high school without serious
molestation. Many white southerners who were resigned to gradual integration of
the schools bitterly resented President Eisenhower's armed intervention. In the light
of the following article in a Little Rock newspaper, explain why. Where is the editor
on the weakest ground? the strongest ground?
Little Rock's Central High School is still under military occupation. The troops
are still there-on the campus, in the building.
The troops are still there, despite the fact that their presence is resented by the
big majority of the students, the parents, and the people in general throughout
the South.
The troops continue to stand guard during school hours, on the grounds
and within the corridors and classrooms, despite the fact that there is no law or
precedent-Federal or State-that permits them to do so.
There is not even an order, or so much as a sanction, from the U.S. Supreme
Court that makes its own "laws" on mixing of races in the public schools.
Federal troops continue to occupy Central High-in defiance of the Constitution, law, and precedent-while the Congress of the United States sits out the sessions and does nothing.
Never before in the history of America has any area of our so-called Free Republic been so shamefully treated.
When two sections of this country were at war with each other, no troops ever
patrolled the public school buildings and grounds from day to day. After the South
had been beaten down, Federal forces kept the vanquished under the iron heel for
4"Editorial-Anti-Little
Rock Intervention" by Karr Shannon in Arkansas Democrat (March 10, 1958).
Reprinted by permission.
446
Chapter 37
The Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
the duration of the "Reconstruction" period. But not once did they molest the public schools with troop occupation.
Education, or attempted education, under the scrutiny of armed troops is unAmerican, un-Godly.
It is not even Communistic. Russia, in all her cruelty, has never bothered school
children in occupied territory by stationing armed soldiers on the grounds and in
the buildings. Germany never did it.
No other nation, however barbaric and cruel and relentless, ever-in the history
of the human race-resorted to such tactics-only the United States, which sets itself up as a world example of peace, freedom, and democracy, forces the military
upon a free school.
How much longer will Congress sit idly by and let such brazen violation of
American principle and law continue on and on and on?
5. A Black Newspaper Praises Courage ( 1958)
Tbe conduct of the nine African American pupils at Central High School, in the face
of the sneers, jeers, jostling, spitting, and other insults, evoked praise in varied places.
A black newspaper in Chicago paid them the following tribute. What parts of their
ordeal must have taken the most courage?
Few incidents in recent American history can match the courage shown by the
nine teen-age Negroes of Little Rock. They risked their lives for the sake of establishing a principle: the right to attend an integrated high school. They did it in the
face of ugly and determined opposition; they did it under circumstances that would
have caused many stout-hearted grownups to withdraw behind the protective shield
of their own homes.
This was the most severe test of the law. The Federal courts paved the way;
Federal troops held the angry mob at bay. But the nine Negro pupils did not have
to march through the guardsmen to enter Little Rock's Central High School. They
could have waited until public indignation had subsided; or they could have decided to attend a nearby Negro school rather than avail themselves of their legal
rights. They didn't. Instead they went ahead, despite jeers and bitter invectives.
How many of us would have had the fortitude to do what these youngsters
have done? How often have we failed to take advantage of victories won for us? It
is therefore the more remarkable that these young Negroes, living in the Deep
South, fearlessly implemented the Court's action by their daily presence at Central
High School.
Though their lot was not a happy one even inside the high school building,
though they were pushed around, insulted, and beaten by some of the white students, the Negro pupils held their ground. The Supreme Court's integration ruling
would have been meaningless had these Negro boys and girls failed to follow the
course mapped out for them by the law. They should be applauded by all of us.
5Chicago
Daily Defender, May 28, 1958.
C. The Supreme Court and the Black Revolution
447
6. Martin Luther King, Jr., Asks for the Ballot ( 195 7)
While the Supreme Court adjudicated, African Americans were taking the struggle
for civil rights into their own hands. The first mass protest against the detested segregation laws erupted in Montgomery, Alabama. On December 1, 1955, a dignified
black woman named Rosa Parks refused to move out of the "whites only" seating section of a city bus. For this, she was arrested; at that moment, "somewhere in the universe, " one black leader later commented, "a gear in the machinery had shifted. "
Her arrest sparked a hugely successful boycott of the bus system by Montgomery's
African Americans and catapulted into prominence a young black minister of the
gospel, the Reverend Martin Luther King, ]r., who assumed a conspicuous leadership
role in the boycott. He swiftly emerged as the nation's premier black spokesman and
until his murder in 1968 led a civil rights crusade that changed the ff4ce of American society. As early as 1957 he identified political rights as the key to improving the
condition of African Americans in the South-where in some states fewer than
5 percent of eligible black voters were casting their ballots in the 1950s. In the speech
reprinted here, what benefits does King think will flow from enfranchisement? What
does he see as the federal government's role in securing black rights? Was his faith in
the power of the ballot misplaced?
Three years ago the Supreme Court of this nation rendered in simple, eloquent
and unequivocal language a decision which will long be stenciled on the mental
sheets of succeeding generations. For all men of good will, this May 17 decision
came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of enforced segregation. It came as
a great beacon light of hope to millions of distinguished people throughout the
world who had dared only to dream of freedom. It came as a legal and sociological
deathblow to the old Plessy doctrine of "separate-but-equal." It came as a reaffirmation of the good old American doctrine of freedom and equality for all people.
Unfortunately, this noble and sublime decision has not gone without opposition. This opposition has often risen to ominous proportions. Many states have risen
up in open defiance. The legislative halls of the South ring loud with such words as
"interposition" and "nullification." Methods of defiance range from crippling economic reprisals to the tragic reign of violence and terror. All of these forces have
conjoined to make for massive resistance.
But, even more, all types of conniving methods are still being used to prevent
Negroes from becoming registered voters. The denial of this sacred right is a tragic
betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic traditions and it is democracy
turned upside down.
So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind-it is made up for me. I cannot live as a
democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact-I can only submit to
the edict of others.
So our most urgent request to the President of the United States and every
member of Congress is to give us the right to vote.
6From
Martin Luther King, Jr., "Give Us the Ballot: We Will Transform the South," The Worker, June 2, 1957.
Reprinted by arrangement with the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr. , c/ o Writers House as agent for the proprietor New York, N.Y. Copyright © 1957 Martin Luther King, Jr, copyright renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King.
448
Chapter 37
T! Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
Give us tlJ1. !)allot and we will no longer have to worry the federal government
about our bas,. lights.
Give us th .:. ballot and we will no longer plead to the federal government for
passage of an antilynching law; we will by the power of our vote write the law on
the statute books of the Southern states and bring an end to the dastardly acts of the
hooded perpetrators of violence.
Give us the ballot and we will transform the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty
mobs into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens.
Give us the ballot and we will fill our legislative halls with men of good will, and
send to the sacred halls of Congress men who will not sign a Southern Manifesto,*
because of their devotion to the manifesto of justice.
Give us the ballot and we will place judges on the benches of the South who
will "do justly and love mercy," and we will place at the head of the Southern states
governors who have felt not only the tang of the human, but the glow of the divine.
Give us the ballot and we will quietly and nonviolently, without rancor or
bitterness, implement the Supreme Court's decision on May 17, 1954.
In this junction of our nation's history there is an urgent need for dedicated and
courageous leadership. If we are to solve the problems ahead and make racial
justice a reality, this leadership must be fourfold.
First, there is need for a strong, aggressive leadership from the federal government. So far, only the judicial branch of the government ha's evinced this quality of
leadership. If the executive and legislative pranches of the government were as concerned about the protection of our citizenship rights as the federal courts have
been, then the transition from a segregated to an integrated society would be infinitely
smoother. But we so often look to Washington in vain for this concern.
In the midst of the tragic breakdown of law and order, the executive branch of
the government is all too silent and apathetic. In the midst of the desperate need for
civil-rights legislation, the legislative branch of the government is all too stagnant
and hypocritical.
This dearth of positive leadership from the federal government is not confined
to one particular political party. Both parties have betrayed the cause of justice. The
Democrats have betrayed it by capitulating to the prejudices and undemocratic
practices of the Southern Dixiecrats. The Republicans have betrayed it by capitulating to the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing, reactionary Northerners. These men so
often have a high blood pressure of words and an anemia of deeds.
In the midst of these prevailing conditions, we come to Washington today
pleading with the President and the members of Congress to provide a strong, moral
and courageous leadership for a situation that cannot permanently be evaded. We
come humbly to say to the men in the forefront of our government that the civilrights issue is not an ephemeral, evanescent domestic issue that can be kicked about
by reactionary guardians of the status quo; it is rather an eternal moral issue which
may well determine the destiny of our nation in the ideological struggle with Com-
*In March 1956 more than ninety southerners, led by Senator Walter George, presented in Congress their
"Declaration of Constitutional Principles," commonly known as the "Southern Manifesto." The document
condemned the Supreme Court decision on segregation in education as a usurpation of the powers of
the states and encouraged the use of "every lawful means" to resist its implementation.
C.
Tbe Supreme Court and the Black Revolution
449
munism. The hour is late. The clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now, before
it is too late.
A second area in which there is need for strong lea Jership is from the white
Northern liberals. There is a dire need today for a liberalism which is truly liberal.
What we are witnessing today in so many Northern communities is a sort of quasi
liberalism which is based on the principle of looking sympathetically at all sides. It
is a liberalism so bent on seeing all sides that it fails to become committed to either
side. It is a liberalism that is so objectively analytical that it is not subjectively committed. It is a liberalism which is neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm.
We call for a liberalism from the North which will be thoroughly committed to
the ideal of racial justice and will not be deterred by the propaganda and subtle
words of those who say, "Slow up for a while; you are pushing too fast. "
A third area that we must look to for strong membership is from the moderates
of the white South. It is unfortunate, indeed, that at this time the leadership of
the white South stems from the dosed-minded reactionaries. These persons gain
prominence and power by the dissemination of false ideas, and by deliberately
appealing to the deepest hate responses within the human mind. It is my firm belief that this dosed-minded, reactionary, recalcitrant group constitutes a numerical minority. There are in the white South more open-minded moderates than
appears on the surface. These persons are silent today because of fear of social,
political and economic reprisals. God grant that the white moderates of the South
will rise up courageously, without fear, and take up the leadership in this tense period
of transition.
I cannot close without stressing the urgent need for strong, courageous and intelligent leadership from the Negro community. We need leadership that is calm and
yet positive. This is no day for the rabble-rouser, whether he be Negro or white. We
must realize that we are grappling with the most weighty social problem of this nation, and in grappling with such a complex problem there is no place for misguided
emotionalism. We must work passionately and unrelentingly for the goal of freedom, but we must be sure that our hands are clean in the struggle. We must never
struggle with falsehood, hate or malice. Let us never become bitter.
There is another warning signal. We talk a great deal about our rights, and
rightly so. We proudly proclaim that three fourths of the peoples of the world are
colored. We have the privilege of noticing in our generation the great drama of freedom and independence as it unfolds in Asia and Africa. All of these things are in
line with the unfolding work of providence.
But we must be sure that we accept them in the right spirit. We must not seek
to use our emerging freedom and our growing power to do the same thing to the
white minority that has been done to us for so many centuries. We must not become
victimized with a philosophy of "black supremacy." Our aim must never be to defeat or to humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding, and
thereby create a society in which all men will be able to live together as brothers.
We must also avoid the temptation of being victimized with a psychology of victors. In our nation, under the guidance of the superb legal staff of the N.A.A.C.P. [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People], we have been able,
through the courts, to remove the legal basis of segregation. This is by far one of
the most marvelous achievements of our generation. Every person of good will is
450
Chapter 37
Tbe Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
profoundly indebted to the N.A.A.C.P. for its noble work. We must not, however, remain satisfied with a court "victory" over our white brothers.
We must respond to every decision with an understanding of those who have
opposed us and with an appreciation of the difficult adjustments that the court orders pose for them.
We must act in such a way as to make possible a coming-together of white people and colored people on the basis of a real harmony of interest and understanding. We must seek an integration based on mutual respect.
I conclude by saying that each of us must keep faith in the future. Let us realize
that as we struggle alone, God struggles with us. He is leading us out of a bewildering Egypt, through a bleak and desolate wilderness, toward a bright and glittering
promised land. Let us go forth into the glorious future with the words of James Weldon Johnson resounding in our souls:
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God,
where we met thee.
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world
we forget thee;
Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand
True to our God, true to our native land.*
D. The Promise and Problems
of a Consumer Society _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
I. The Editors of Fortune Celebrate
American Affluence ( 1955)
No other nation had ever enjoyed a surge of prosperity as dazzling and as widely
shared as Americans experienced in the two decades after World War II. In the selection
below, the editors of the business magazine Fortune describe America's postwar affluence and some of its implications. What do they see as historically unprecedented in the
postwar American economy? How well-placed was their faith in future prosperity?
All history can show no more portentous economic phenomenon than today's
American market. It is colossal, soaking up half the world's steel and oil, and threefourths of its cars and appliances. The whole world fears it and is baffled by it. Let
U.S. industry slip 5 per cent, and waves of apprehension sweep through foreign
*"Lift Every Voice and Sing" from Saint Peter Relates an Incident by James Weldon Johnson. Copyright
1917, 1921 , 1935 by James Weldon Johnson, copyright renewed © 1963 by Grace Nail Johnson. Used by
permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
1
From the editors of Fortune, "The Changing American Market" (Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1955),
pp. 13-18, 73-74, 249-250. © 1955 Time, Inc. All rights reserved.
D. The Promise and Problems of a Consumer Society
451
chancelleries. Let U.S. consumer spending lag even half as much, and the most eminent economists anxiously read the omens. The whole world also marvels at and
envies this market. It is enabling Americans to raise their standard of living every
year while other countries have trouble in maintaining theirs. And of course the
whole world wants to get in on it. For it still can punish the incompetent and inefficient, and still reward handsomely the skillful, efficient, and daring.
The American market is all this mainly because it is a changed and always
changing market. The underlying reason for the American market's growth and
changeability is the nation's rising productivity, or output per man-hour-that cachet of efficiency without which no nation today is civilized or even modern. American productivity is of course the world's highest. For years it has been increasing
unevenly but incessantly at an average rate of about 2 per cent a year, and it has
done even better since 1947. And because productivity is rising so swiftly, the market is expanding much faster than the population. For rising productivity, in the long
run, ends up as rising purchasing power, and the standard of living rises, palpably if
not uniformly. People who could buy x amount of goods five years ago may buy x
plus 8 or 10 or 15 per cent today, and x plus 16 or 20 or 30 per cent five years from
now. Such is the dynamism that gives the American Dream its economic substance.
There is another important reason for the market's changeability. The market,
after all, is the people. Their energy, efficiency, taste, and capacity for change at bottom are responsible for the American market's pitfalls and prizes. Most of the basic
American characteristics are well understood-the restless, enthusiastic energy, the
lack of traditional impedimenta, the almost dogmatic optimism, and the special delight in the brand-new ....
The most important change of the past few years, by all odds, is the rise of the
great mass into a new moneyed middle class-a rapidly growing market that seems
bound, sooner or later, to become the American market. It is like no other middle
class in history, either abroad or at home ....
So late as 1929, the high-water market of that gaudy but optimistic era that
hoped to abolish poverty altogether, the mass-and-class pattern [an economy consisting of a great "mass, " who had very little discretionary income, and a small
"class " of wealthy consumers}, was disconcertingly evident. In 1929, Fortune estimates, 36 million family units got a total of $118 billion in cash, in 1953 dollars, after
taxes. To see just where the mass market was, let us break the $118 billion down
into three groups:
At the top were a million family units* (3 per cent of them all) with more than
$10,000, who together received $24 billion or 20 per cent of the total income. Just
under them was the smaller $7,500-to-$10,000 group getting $11 billion or 9 per
cent of the total.
In the middle were 5,500,000 family units (15 per cent of them all) with between
$4,000 and $7,500, who together received $30 billion or 25 per cent of total income.
At the bottom were 29 million family units (80 per cent of them all) with less
than $4,000, who together received a total of $53 billion or 46 per cent of total
income.
*Family units include (1) families consisting of related persons residing together and (2) unrelated
individuals-whether residing alone or with others.
452
Chapter 37
The Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
The bottom group constituted the mass market of 1929. None of its members
had a spendable income of more than $4,000 or about $2,500 in 1929 dollars. Few
of them, manifestly, were in the market for many luxuries, or even much more than
essentials ....
See how all that has changed. There were in 1953 in the U.S., Fortune estimates,
a total of 51 million family units, 42 per cent more than in 1929, who got $222 billion, or 87 per cent more than in 1929. Plainly, the nation as a whole had gained
enormously. But look at how this has pushed families above the $4,000 level,
where, economists agree, "discretionary" buying power becomes significant:
The $4,000-to-$7,500 group in 1953 contained 18 million family units or 35 per
cent of the total. And they got $93 billion or 42 per cent of total income. Since 1929,
in other words, this group has more then trebled in both numbers and income ....
All in all, 58 per cent of family units today have a real income of $3,000 to
$10,000, against 31 per cent in 1929 .
. . . [T]he needs and buying power of the members of this group are remarkably
homogeneous. Some spend more money on this thing, and some on the other, but
essentially they buy the same things-the same staples, the same appliances, the
same cars, the same furniture, and much the same recreation. The lesson is obvious.
The marketer who designs his product to appeal to the whole group has hit the
new mass market.
All this adds up to one of the swiftest and most thorough-going changes in economic history-and yet a relatively easy one for almost everybody. There are two
forces behind it. One is a pervasive, complex rearrangement or redistribution of incomes; the other a sharp increase in the country's real per capita income ....
. . . Suburbia [to which Americans were moving at an astonishing rate} is the exemplification of the new and growing moneyed middle class, which Fortune described as a market that seems bound, sooner or later, to become the American
market. The average family-unit income of Suburbia is $6,500, which is 70 per cent
higher than that of the rest of the nation. Since 1940, real, spendable income of U.S.
customers, in 1953 dollars, has increased by nearly two-thirds, and most of this increase has gone to expand the numbers and incomes of family units with more than
$4,000 a year. Not only are about a third of these families concentrated in the suburbs, the $4,000-and-over group makes up two-thirds of the suburbs. Suburbia is already the cream of the market.
The middle-class Suburbia, rapidly growing larger and more affluent, is developing a way of life that seems eventually bound to become dominant in America. It
has been a major force in the phenomenal rise in the nation's birth rate. It has centered its customs and conventions on the needs of children and geared its buying
habits to them. It has made the "ranch house" nationally popular. It has kept whole
industries busy making equipment for outdoor living. It has helped double the sale
of raiment woven of once lowly denim, and caused the sales of sports shirts to overtake the sales of "dress shirts .... "
[O]n the whole people seem more inclined to spend than they ever have been.
Social security, pensions, and other fringe benefits, which doubtless hastened the
decline in the savings rate, should accelerate the decline still further. The "readjustments" [recessions] of 1949 and 1954, which were short-lived mainly because con-
D. Tbe Promise and Problems of a Consumer Society
453
sumers did not stop spending, have suggested that the nation is, or is pretty close to
being, depression-proof. This will generate more confidence and more spending.
Moreover, the dynamic projection involves a tremendous expansion of the
economy. The question is not whether the economy will expand, but how much it
will expand ....
. . . The trend of the consumer market today is not toward the development of
new and startling products but the improvement, variation, and adornment of the
old products. Thus people are spending 25 per cent more for food per capita (in
1953 dollars) than they were before the war, buying about 25 per cent more per car,
perhaps 25 per cent more units (not value) of clothes, and so on. The challenge to
business is to keep up with the market's potentialities not only by making and selling more of everything, but by improving, varying, and adorning everything-by
blurring still further the already blurred line that distinguishes Americans' luxuries
and Americans' necessities.
2. John Kenneth Galbraith Criticizes
the Affluent Society ( 1958)
America knew fabulous prosperity in the postwar era-or did it? In an influential
book first published in the late 1950s, Harvard economist john Kenneth Galbraith
probingly questioned the implications of the United States' apparent affluence. His
ideas contributed significantly to discussion among policymakers about the kinds of
social reforms that later were enac;ted as the Great Society programs. What is the distinction that Galbraith draws between the private and the public realms? How convincing is his argument? What does the relationship between private and public
goods suggest about the character of American values?
The final problem of the productive society is what it produces. This manifests
itself in an implacable tendency to provide an opulent supply of some things and a
niggardly yield of others. This disparity carries to the point where it is a cause of social discomfort and social unhealth. The line which divides our area of wealth from
our area of poverty is roughly that which divides privately produced and marketed
goods and services from publicly rendered services. Our wealth in the first is not
only in startling contrast with the meagerness of the latter, but our wealth in privately produced goods is, to a marked degree, the cause of crisis in the supply of
public services. For we have failed to see the importance, indeed the urgent need,
of maintaining a balance between the two.
This disparity between our flow of private and public goods and services is no
matter of subjective judgment. On the contrary, it is the source of the most extensive
comment which only stops short of the direct contrast being made here. In the years
following World War II, the papers of any major city-those of New York were an
excellent example-told daily of the shortages and shortcomings in the elementary
municipal and metropolitan services. The schools were old and overcrowded. The
2
Excerpt from The Affluent Society, Fourth Edition, by John Kenneth Galbraith. Copyright © 1958, 1969,
1976, 1984 by John Kenneth Galbraith. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights
reserved.
454
Chapter 37
The Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
police force was under strength and underpaid. The parks and playgrounds were
insufficient. Streets and empty lots were filthy, and the sanitation staff was underequipped and in need of men. Access to the city by those who work there was
uncertain and painful and becoming more so. Internal transportation was overcrowded, unhealthful and dirty. So was the air. Parking on the streets should have
been prohibited, but there was no space elsewhere. These deficiencies were not
in new and novel services but in old and established ones. Cities have long swept
their streets, helped their people move around, educated them, kept order, and
provided horse rails for equipages which sought to pause. That their residents
should have a nontoxic supply of air suggests no revolutionary dalliance with
socialism.
The discussion of this public poverty competed, on the whole successfully, with
the stories of ever-increasing opulence in privately produced goods. The Gross National Product was rising. So were retail sales. So was personal income. Labor productivity had also advanced. The automobiles that could not be parked were being
produced at an expanded rate. The children, though without schools, subject in the
playgrounds to the affectionate interest of adults with odd tastes, and disposed to
increasingly imaginative forms of delinquency, were admirably equipped with television sets. We had difficulty finding storage space for the great surpluses of food
despite a national disposition to obesity. Food was grown and packaged under private auspices. The care and refreshment of the mind, in contrast with the stomach,
was principally in the public domain. Our colleges and universities were often severely overcrowded and underprovided, and the same was even more often true of
the mental hospitals.
The contrast was and remains evident not alone to those who read. The family
which takes its mauve and cerise, air-conditioned, power-steered and power-braked
automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous
by litter, blighted buildings, billboards and posts for wires that should long since
have been put underground. They pass on into a countryside that has been rendered largely invisible by commercial art. (The goods which the latter advertise have
an absolute priority in our value system. Such aesthetic considerations as a view of
the countryside accordingly come second. On such matters, we are consistent.)
They picnic on exquisitely packaged food from a portable icebox by a polluted
stream and go on to spend the night at a park which is a menace to public health
and morals. Just before dozing off on an air mattress, beneath a nylon tent, amid the
stench of decaying refuse, they may reflect vaguely on the curious unevenness of
their blessings. Is this, indeed, the American genius? . ..
A feature of the years immediately following World War II was a remarkable attack on the notion of expanding and improving public services. During the depression years, such services had been elaborated and improved partly in order to fill
some small part of the vacuum left by the shrinkage of private production. During
the war years, the role of government was vastly expanded. After that came the reaction. Much of it, unquestionably, was motivated by a desire to rehabilitate the
prestige of private production and therewith of producers. No doubt some who
joined the attack hoped, at least tacitly, that it might be possible to sidestep the truce
on taxation vis-a-vis equality by having less taxation of all kinds. For a time, the notion that our public services had somehow become inflated and excessive was all
D. Tbe Promise and Problems of a Consumer Society
455
but axiomatic. Even liberal politicians did not seriously protest. They found it necessary to aver that they were in favor of public economy too.
In this discussion, a certain mystique was attributed to the satisfaction of privately supplied wants. A community decision to have a new school means that the
individual surrenders the necessary amount, willy-nilly, in his taxes. But if he is left
with that income, he is a free man. He can decide between a better car or a television set. This was advanced with some solemnity as an argument for the 1V set. The
difficulty is that this argument leaves the community with no way of preferring the
school. All private wants, where the individual can choose, are inherently superior
to all public desires which must be paid for by taxation and with an inevitable component of compulsion.
The cost of public services was also held to be a desolating burden on private
production, although this was at a time when the private production was burgeoning.
Urgent warnings were issued on the unfavorable effects of taxation on investment. . ..
Finally, it was argued, with no little vigor, that expanding government posed a
grave threat to individual liberties ....
With time, this attack on public services has subsided. The disorder associated
with social imbalance has become visible even if the need for balance between private and public services is still imperfectly appreciated ....
Nonetheless, the postwar onslaught on the public services left a lasting imprint.
To suggest that we canvass our public wants to see where happiness can be improved by more and better services has a sharply radical tone. Even public services
to avoid disorder must be defended. By contrast, the man who devises a nostrum for
a nonexistent need and then successfully promotes both remains one of nature's
noblemen.
3. Newton Minow Criticizes the "Vast Wasteland"
of Television ( 1961)
Newton N. Minow, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in the
john F Kennedy administration, delivered the following address to the National
Association of Broadcasters in 1961. Delivered, ironically, in what some observers
regard as the "golden age" of television programming, his remarks have become a
classic indictment of the cultural vapidity of television-called a medium, some have
said, because so little of it is rare or well-done. How fair is Minow 's critique? What
might explain the dismal situation that Minow describes? Has programming changed
substantially in the intervening years?
It may . .. come as a surprise to some of you, but I want you to know that you
have my admiration and respect. Yours is a most honorable profession. Anyone who
is in the broadcasting business has a tough row to hoe. You earn your bread by
using public property. When you work in broadcasting you volunteer for public service, public pressure, and public regulation. You must compete with other attractions
3Newton
N. Minow , "Program Control: The Broadcasters Are Public Trustees," Vital Speeches 27 (June 15,
1961): 533-535.
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The Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
and other investments, and the only way you can do it is to prove to us every three
years that you should have been in business in the first place.
I can think of easier ways to make a living.
But I cannot think of more satisfying ways.
I admire your courage-but that doesn't mean I would make life any easier for
you. Your license lets you use the public's airwaves as Trustees for 180,000,000
Americans. The public is your beneficiary. If you want to stay on as Trustees, you must
deliver a decent return to the public-not only to your stockholders. So, as a representative of the public, your health and your product are among my chief concerns ....
I have confidence in your health.
But not in your product. ...
[In] today's world, with chaos in Laos and the Congo aflame, with Communist
tyranny on our Caribbean doorstep and relentless pressure on our Atlantic alliance,
with social and economic problems at home of the gravest nature, yes, and with
technological knowledge that makes it possible, as our President has said, not only
to destroy our world but to destroy poverty around the world-in a time of peril
and opportunity, the old complacent, unbalanced fare of Action-Adventure and
Situation Comedies is simply not good enough.
Your industry possesses the most powerful voice in America. It has an inescapable duty to make that voice ring with intelligence and with leadership. In a
few years, this exciting industry has grown from a novelty to an instrument of overwhelming impact on the American people. It should be making ready for the kind
of leadership that newspapers and magazines assumed years ago, to make our
people aware of their world.
Ours has been called the jet age, the atomic age, the space age. It is also, I submit, the television age. And just as history will decide whether the leaders of today's
world employed the atom to destroy the world or rebuild it for mankind's benefit,
so will history decide whether today's broadcasters employed their powerful voice
to enrich the people or debase them ....
Like everybody, I wear more than one hat. I am the Chairman of the FCC. I am
also a television viewer and the husband and father of other television viewers ....
I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the
air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and loss sheet or rating book to distract you-and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs
off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.
You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience participation
shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder,
mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western badmen, western good men, private
eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials-many
screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you will see a
few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, try it. ...
I do not accept the idea that the present over-all programming is aimed accurately at the public taste. The ratings tell us only that some people have their television sets turned on and of that number, so many are tuned to one channel and so
many to another. They don't tell us what the public might watch if they were offered
D. The Promise and Problems of a Consumer Society
457
half a dozen additional choices. A rating, at best, is an indication of how many
people saw what you gave them. Unfortunately, it does not reveal the depth of the
penetration, or the intensity of reaction, and it never reveals what the acceptance
would have been if what you gave them had been better-if all the forces of art and
creativity and daring and imagination had been unleashed. I believe in the people's
good sense and good taste, and I am not convinced that the people's taste is as low
as some of you assume ....
Certainly, I hope you will agree that ratings should have little influence where
children are concerned. The best estimates indicate that during the hours of 5 to
6 P.M . 60% of your audience is composed of children under 12. And most young
children today, believe it or not, spend as much time watching television as they do
in the schoolroom. I repeat-let that sink in-most young children today spend as
much time watching television as they do in the schoolroom. It used to be said that
there were three great influences on a child: home, school, and church. Today, there
is a fourth great influence, and you ladies and gentlemen control it.
If parents, teachers, and ministers conducted their responsibilities by following
the ratings, children would have a steady diet of ice cream, school holidays, and no
Sunday School. What about your responsibilities? Is there no room on television to
teach, to inform, to uplift, to stretch, to enlarge the capacities of our children? Is
there no room for programs deepening their understanding of children in other
lands? Is there no room for a children's news show explaining something about the
world to them at their level of understanding? Is there no room for reading the great
literature of the past, teaching them the great traditions of freedom? There are some
fine children's shows, but they are drowned out in the massive doses of cartoons, violence, and more violence. Must these be your trademarks? Search your consciences
and see if you cannot offer more to your yourig beneficiaries whose future you
guide so many hours each and every day ....
4. Women's Career Prospects ( 1950)
In the 1940s and 1950s, American women faced a dilemma. An expanding economy and the demands of a consumer society continued to fuel women's entrance
into the work force. Yet traditional notions of a woman's place remained strongly
rooted in the culture. These surveys from a 1950s Gallup poll suggest a great deal
about society's sometimes contradictory expectations of working women. Why were
some occupations deemed more suitable for women?
<~_Tune
4-9 copyright © 1950 The Gallup Organization. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
458
Chapter 37
1be Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
Interviewing Date 6/4-9/50
Survey #456-K
Question #14
Interviewing Date 6/ 4-9/ 50
Survey #456-K
Question #15
Suppose a young man came to you and
asked your advice about taking up a
profession. Assuming that he was qualified to enter any of these professions,
which one of them would you first recommend to him? (on card)
Suppose a young girl came to you and
asked your advice about taking up a
profession. Assuming that she was qualified to enter any of these professions,
which one of them would you first
recommend?
Doctor of medicine
Engineer, builder
Business executive
Clergyman
Lawyer
Government worker
Professor, teacher
Banker
Dentist
Veterinarian
None, don't know
29%
16
8
8
8
6
5
4
4
3
9
Choice of Women
Nurse
Teacher
Secretary
Social service worker
Dietician
Dressmaker
Beautician
Airline stewardess
Actress
Journalist
Musician
Model
Librarian
Medical, dental technician
Others
Don't know
33%
15
8
8
7
4
4
3
3
2
2
2
2
1
2
4
The views of men on this subject were
nearly identical with those of women.
5. Agnes Meyer Defends Women's
Traditional Role ( 1950)
As women began to seek greater rights and expanded professional opportunities in
the postwar era, some of them worried that by pursuing a man 's definitions of success, they risked abandoning their distinctive feminine identity, with disastrous results for children, marriage, society, and women 's own status. Agnes Meyer's widely
read essay "Women Aren't Men " advances this argument robustly. Armed with a
graduate education and a reputation for social reform, Meyer could hardly be dismissed as a mindless reactionary. What are the implications of her insistence that
women 's interests are better served by emphasizing differences rather than equality?
5 This essay originated as an address delivered at Howard University and was then published in the Atlantic
Monthly in August 1950. The version excerpted here is from Agnes Meyer, "Women Aren't Men," Reader's
Digest 57, November 1950, pp . 80-84. Reprinted by permission of the family of Agnes E. Meyer/ Estate
of Katharine Graham.
D. The Promise and Problems of a Consumer Society
459
Women have many careers but only one vocation-motherhood. When woman
sublimates her mother instinct in a career she can achieve a rich and rewarding life;
but only if she follows her vocation can she live in the fullest sense of the word. It
is for woman as mother, actual or vicarious, to restore emotional security in our insecure world.
Since time immemorial it has been woman who has held the family, society and
life itself together. . ..
. . . Today, however, the duties of the homemaker have become so depreciated
that many women feel impelled to work outside the home-even when it is not
economically necessary-in order to retain the respect of the community ....
. . . Modern woman has to recapture the wisdom that just being a woman is her
central task and her greatest honor.
If we look about us we find hopeful indications .... There have probably never
been in any civilization so many ideal marital partnerships in which husband and
wife respect each other's sphere of activity, and in which both share the responsibility for the education of the children.
On the other hand, there have never been so many women who are unnecessarily torn between marriage and a career, or so many mothers who neglect their
children because they find some trivial job more interesting. The most pathetic neglected children are those who come from well-to-do homes. The poor child whose
mother has to work has some inner security because he knows in his heart that his
mother is sacrificing herself for his well-being. But the neglected child from a wellto-do home, who realizes instinctively that his mother prefers her job to him, often
hates her with a passionate intensity. These are the children who frequently get into
the worst difficulties because they are the most deeply hurt and resentful.
What ails these women who reject their children? Surface influences of a competitive, materialistic world have atrophied their emotions and destroyed their instinctive reactions . . . .
. . . God protect us all from the efficient, go-getter businesswoman whose feminine instincts have been completely sterilized. Wherever women are functioning ,
whether in the home or in a job, they must remember that their chief function as
women is a capacity for warm and charitable human relationships ....
. . . What the world needs today is not more competition but woman's native
genius for sympathetic cooperation-between public and private endeavor, between management and labor, between contending religious sects, between the
family and the community, between one individual and another. This is woman's
great opportunity-to ease the acute and dangerous tensions of American life.
I am not asking women to overdo self-sacrifice to a point of self-abasement.
Women must learn to keep self-respect and self-sacrifice, the social and the biological functions, in balance. Such women are not concerned with the modern cry for
equal rights, because they are sure of themselves and of what they have to give to
the world. They seek not parity but partnership with men.
In many respects the cry for equal rights has been a pernicious doctrine, especially in two areas-sex and marriage. The sexual morality of our nation has never
been lower, because in seeking for equal rights women have dragged their standards downward. This sex freedom which so many women are practicing is a
460
Chapter 37
Tbe Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960
delusion, for woman's sexuality, if it is not to be destructive to her and to society,
has to be more spiritual than that of man.
Woman runs the risk of warping her whole personality unless she uses the postadolescent years to develop her character, her mind and her platonic idealism, as
contrasted with her physiological equipment. By seeking change as in itself of value
in her sex life, she also endangers her capacity for permanent human relationships
and therefore her interest in a lasting marriage. The woman who guards her sex life
as intimately related to her development as a whole human being is the one who is
likely to achieve the highest type of sex life, and the one who is apt to attract and to
hold the devotion of the right husband ....
. . . [A] divorce should be accessible in those cases where gross abuses make it
unavoidable. But in most cases it would not be necessary if young women could
lead lives that permit them to mature toward balanced womanhood, and chose their
husbands not as a consequence of some infantile repressions or mere sex appeal,
but with a view to permanent partnership. If marriages are made purely on a basis
of sex they will be dissolved for the same reason, and that is a game which women
cannot win.
Is this call to the moral rejuvenation of our society too exacting a role for American womanhood? No. As I said at the outset, there are numerous indications of the
reorientation of woman's thinking, evidenced among other things by many successful young marriages of the finest type. If it is difficult to carry out the high role of
woman in our modern society, it is also a great honor to be a woman in this critical
period. Now that destruction threatens us from within and without, woman's role in
society is again recognized as the fundamental and vital one that it always has been.
For, as mother, woman represents the perpetual triumph of life over death.
E. Eisenhower Says Farewell ( 1961 ) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Dwight Eisenhower, the war hero, presided over nearly eight years of peaceful U.S.
relations with the rest of the world. Yet Eisenhower also presided over the largest
peacetime buildup of armaments in U.S. history up to that time. In his final message
to the American people as president, the popular ex-soldier sounded a surprising
warning about the economic, political, and social consequences of the garrison state
that the United States was apparently becoming. His speech is justly remembered as
one of the most telling criticisms of the domestic consequences of the Cold War. What
are the most worrisome aspects of the "military-industrial complex" that Eisenhower
described? Why did he wait until he was on his way out of office to express his alarm?
Good evening, my fellow Americans:
First, let me express my gratitude to the radio and television networks for the
opportunity to express myself to you during these past eight years and tonight.
From Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960-1961 (Washington,
D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, 1961), pp. 1036-1039.
E. Eisenhower Says Farewell (1961)
461
Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall
lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional solemn ceremony, the authority of the President is vested in my successor.
This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to
share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen ....
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four
major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite
these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential, and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet
realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches, and material strength, but on how we use our
power in the interests of world peace and human betterment. ...
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic,
great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and
costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge
increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to
cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied researchthese and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the
need to maintain balance in and among national problems-balance between the
private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantagebalance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation
upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually
finds imbalance and frustration.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well,
in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise.
I mention two only.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms
must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be
tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any
of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men in World War II
or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make
swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvision of national
defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast
proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more
than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even
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spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail
to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
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 the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military
machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrialmilitary posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the
direction of, the federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by
task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the
free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has
experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs
involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by federal employment,
project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be
regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we
must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself
become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and
other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system-ever
aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
Thought Provokers
1. What were the advantages and disadvantages of the "massive retaliation" doctrine? Did
Eisenhower's foreign policies ease or intensify Cold War tensions?
2. Did Senator McCarthy help or hinder the cause of anticommunism? Were any of his
charges justified? Is U.S. society peculiarly vulnerable to his kind of demagoguery? What
finally stopped McCarthy? Did McCarthyism perish with Joseph McCarthy?
3. Progressives and liberals have historically argued that the courts should take a hands-off
approach toward legislation in the economic realm, yet they applauded the Supreme
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Court's activist role in civil rights matters. Were they being inconsistent? What were the
greatest obstacles to the success of the civil rights movement? What were its greatest assets?
4. What, if anything, was new about the sources and character of American prosperity in
the 1950s? Does the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) provide an attractive alternative to
the "sins" of the commercial broadcasters as described by Newton Minow?
5. What drove the changes in women's status in the 1950s? In what ways did those changes
amount to progress?
6. How prophetic was Eisenhower's warning about the "military-industrial complex"? Is
that complex more or less powerful now than in Eisenhower's day? To what extent was
it an inevitable product of the Cold War?