ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS:

Legislation

Service Readjustment Act (also the G.I. Bill of Rights) (1944) � the 15 million veterans would be hard to absorb into the workforce; this act provided some 8 million of them with an education, costing a total of $14.5 billion taxpayer dollars. It also created the Veterans� Administration (VA), which provided $16 billion in loans to veterans to buy homes, farms, and small businesses.
Employment Act (1946) � created a three-member Council of Economic Advisers to provide the president with data and suggestions for promoting "maximum employment, production, and purchasing power."
Taft-Hartley Act (also the Labor-Management Relations Act) (1947) � outlawed the "closed shop" (all-union), made unions liable for damages resulting from disputes among themselves, and required union leaders to make a non-Communist oath. This was a blow against unions.

The Gross National Product and American Wealth

Following WWII, in 1946 and 1947, the gross national product (GNP) dropped markedly. With the removal of wartime price freezing, prices rose by up to 33% during these years. However, in 1948, the GNP began to soar, and continued to do so steadily until the 1970�s. Americans controlled 40% of the planet�s wealth. In 1950 and the rest of the decade, 10% of the GNP was spent on national defense. By the mid-1950�s, the middle class consisted of 60% of the population, who had between $3,000 and $10,000 in earnings per year. By the dawn of 1960, 90% of American homes owned a TV set, 60% of families owned their own home (contrary to the 40% of the late 1920�s), and most families owned their own car and washing machine.

Unions and Organized Labour

There was an epidemic of strikes, especially in steel, automobile, and coal industries. In 1946 alone, about 4.6 million workers struck. The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act proved to be a blow against labor unions. Part-time female workers, as well as workers in the South and West, were found to be difficult to convince to unionize during the late 1940�s. In the 1950�s union membership was at its pinnacle, and began to decline from there. In 1955 the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged. After frequent strikes and scandals within the Teamsters Union, Congress passed the Landrum-Griffin Act in 1959, for the purpose of prohibiting "secondary boycotts," specific types of picketing, to prevent bullying tactics, and to force labor leaders to be held financially responsible for activities.

SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS:

Changes in Demography and Culture

At the end of WWII, 15% of the workforce was involved in agriculture, compared to 2% in 1990. Advances in technology obviated the need for farm workers. With the invention of the 1944 mechanical cotton picker, Blacks had been continually commencing a northbound exodus from the south.
The "Sunbelt", consisting of 15 states in a crescent smile, increased in population markedly. The South and Southwest became a frontier for Americans seeking jobs, a better climate, and lower taxes.
With the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and the Veterans� Administration (VA) � from the G.I. Bill), home-loans were distributed, and suburban homes became a trend. By 1960, 1:4 Americans were suburbanites. The Levitt Brothers erected a "Levittown" in New York�s Long Island in the 1940�s. Their process called for constructing hundreds or more dwelling places under a single project, rather than the typical policy of one house at a time. With almost assembly line precision, suburban communities (supplying architectural monotony, cultural bareness, and both inexpensive and spacious living) became the craze of Americans trying to escape the confines of city-life. The "White flight" left the inner cities poor and racially concentrated. The FHA even denied loans to Black families, which exacerbated segregation. By 1960 1:4 homes in America had been built during the 1950�s, and 83% of these were in suburbia.
The "baby boom" generation was instigated by a record number of post-WWII marriages. However, this rate peaked in 1957 and then headed downhill. By 1973, fertility rates became so low that immigration became necessary to maintain the population quota. As the baby boomers matured, they caused waves to roll through the century, following their maturity.
Computers, television, sports, and popular music all were important of the era. TV shows depicting the model American family consisted of one thing in common � a housewife. This was typical of much of the middle-class until the mid-1950�s onward, when women�s roll in the workforce blossomed.

McCarthyism at Home

Beginning in 1947, Truman instituted a massive "loyalty" program. The attorney general named 90 supposedly disloyal organizations, none of which had a chance to defend against accusations. A Loyalty Review Board investigated more than 3 million federal employees, about 3,000 of which either resigned or were dismissed. Loyalty oaths became demanded more frequently by employers, especially in such jobs as teaching. The Smith Act of 1940 was the first antisedition law since 1798. Dennis vs. United States (1951) upheld the imprisonment of eleven columnists in 1949 who were convicted of "advocating the overthrow of the American government by force."
In 1938, the House established the Committee on Un-American Activities ("HUAC") to investigate "subversion." Richard M. Nixon, in 1948, headed a chase after Alger Hiss, a distinguished member of the "eastern establishment." Hiss was tried in August of that year and convicted of perjury in 1950. In February of 1950, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, a Wisconsin Republican, charged that Secretary of State Dean Acheson was knowingly employing 205 Communist party members in the State Department. Through his inability to prove any of his accusations (including one against Truman), fear of the red-hunt turning into a witch-hunt arose. During the next four years, McCarthy continued to make accusations (which unfairly cost many innocent men their careers), and a majority of Americans approved of McCarthy (or were so intimidated that they were compelled to not protest). In 35 days of televised hearings against the US Army in 1954, McCarthy lost fame and credibility. He died 3 years later. TV played a large role in his political career. Also in 1950, passing over Truman�s veto, came the McCarran Internal Security Bill, which authorized the President to arrest suspicious people during a state of "internal security emergency."
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (notorious spies who leaked atomic data to Moscow) were convicted in 1951 of espionage and received the chair in 1953. They were the only people executed for espionage during peacetime.

Race Issues at Home

In 1950, there were 15 million blacks in the US, 2:3 of which lived in the South. Jim Crow laws (from the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson) governed all aspects of their life. The affair of Emmett Till�s death in 1955 reached many Americans (via television) as an omen that change was needed. Swedish scholar Gunnar Mydal in his An American Dilemma displayed evidence of how blacks suffered. Smith vs. Allwright (1944) held that white primaries were unconstitutional. Sweatt vs. Painter (1950) ruled that separate professional schools for blacks failed to meet the test of equality. In December 1955 Rosa Parks refused to suffer her seat to a white man. The yearlong Montgomery bus boycott was the epitome and beginning of nonviolent protest. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 to promote nonviolent protest. In 1948 Truman ordered the desegregation of the armed forces. The Supreme Court, under Earl Warren, held, in the epochal Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (May 1954), that separate was "inherently unequal" in regards to public education. The justices insisted that desegregation must go ahead with "all deliberate speed."
In September of 1957, Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock�s Central High School to escort nine black students to their classes. In that year, Congress passed the first Civil Rights Act since Reconstruction, which established a permanent Civil Rights Commission to investigate civil rights violations.
"Sit-in" movements, like the one initiated on February 1, 1960 in a Greensboro, North Carolina at Woolworth�s. In April of that year, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was created to give more focus on these efforts.

Writers:

Election of 1948 and the "Fair Deal"

With NY Governor Thomas E. Dewey getting the Republican nomination a second time in a row, the Democratic party wasn�t that simple. Vice President Henry A. Wallace left the party over the get-tough-with-Russia policy and was nominated by the new Progressive Party. As for the rest of the party, Dwight Eisenhower�s refusal to take the nomination, with his strong stand in favor of civil rights and his veteranship as a war hero, led to Truman�s nomination, an act that split the party. Southern democrats from 13 states met in Birmingham, Alabama (brandishing Confederate flags), and these "Dixiecrats" nominated Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina on the States� Rights party ticket.
Though polls sided with Dewey, Truman won the election, and the Democrats regained control of Congress. His victory rested on Republican over-confidence, the people�s admiration of his courage, and the arrogant impression Dewey left on voters.
In his inaugural address, Truman called for his bold new program, stated as "Point Four" in his speech. The plan called for lending US money and technical aid to underdeveloped lands to help them help themselves. It was officially launched in 1950, and was notably present in Latin America, Africa, the Near East, and the Far East. In 1949, Truman outlined his "Fair Deal" program to Congress. It called for improved housing, full employment, a higher minimum wage, better farm prices, new TVAs, and a Social Security extension. Due to opposition from Republicans and southern Democrats, the only major successes came in raising the minimum wage, providing public housing with the Housing Act of 1949, and extending old-age insurance to many more recipients in the Social Security Act of 1950.

Election of 1952 and Korea

Democrats nominated Illinois Governor Adlai E. Stevenson, while the Republicans skipped over Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft to go with General Dwight David Eisenhower. To quell anticommunist Taft supporters, the famous red-hunter and CA Senator Richard M. Nixon was chosen as the Republican vice presidential nominee. Eisenhower had been the first supreme commander of NATO from 1950-1952, as well as wartime supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe and the army chief of staff after the war. Nixon's reputation, however, plummeted when reports surfaced of a secretly financed "slush fund" he tapped while in the Senate. His nationally televised appeal was filled with pity and touched many Americans. His "Checkers speech", as it was called because of his reference to the family cocker spaniel, saved him from being booted off the ticket. Eisenhower allowed himself to be videotaped, answering questions, only to have the audience which asked them be spliced in afterwards, giving the illusion of a live discussion. TV saved one career and aided another.
Eisenhower�s pledge to personally go to Korea to end the war was effective only in further-securing his victory. The Republicans regained Congress (but lost their majority in the congressional election two years later), and Eisenhower won. Eisenhower�s 3-day visit to Korea in 1952 did not accomplish an end to the war, but seven months later, he threatened to use atomic weapons. An armistice was soon signed, though violated repeatedly in the following decades. In his first year as executive, Eisenhower also strove to balance the federal deficit (a feat he accomplished during 3 of his 8 years, along with the largest peacetime deficit, in 1959) and to slow down Truman�s enormous military buildup policy.
Eisenhower�s Interstate Highway Act of 1956 called for $27 billion to be spent on building 42,000 miles of roads. This created countless jobs and further catalyzed the suburbanization of America. It did, however, rob the railroads of business and exacerbated problems of air quality and energy consumption.

Election of 1956

Despite a 1955 heart attack and a 1956 abdominal operation, Eisenhower and Nixon returned as the Republican candidates, with Adlai Stevenson nominated a second time by the Democrats. While the Republicans won, they failed to capture a majority in Congress � a first since Zachary Taylor�s 1848 election that this happened.
Upon entering the White House a second time, Eisenhower seemed to be relying on Secretary of State Dulles and assistant Sherman Adams, the former of which died of cancer in 1959, but not until after the latter had been forced to resign due to payoff scandals.

Election of 1960

Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy�s Democratic nomination (with Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson on the ticket as well) was the first time a Roman Catholic had been nominated since Al Smith in 1928. He fought back the bigotry and the prejudice to win against Republican Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. In Congress, the Democrats won the majority.

Foreign and Domestic Affairs, Diplomacy, and Legislation:

Twenty-second Amendment (1951) � limited the maximum of years a president could serve in office to 10 years (up to 2 full terms of his own and up to 2 years of his predecessor�s).

Early Organizations, The United Nations, and NATO

In 1944, at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, the Western Allies met and established the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which would encourage world trade by monitoring currency exchange rates; and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), which would promote economic growth. The US took the reigns in the generating and financing of these organizations, while the Soviets declined membership.
Situated in New York and constructed in a few San Francisco conferences, the last of which being the April 25, 1945 United Nations Conference, the final draft of the United Nations Charter was approved by the US on July 28, 1945. It called for a Security Council, consisting of the US, USSR, Britain, China, and France (the Big Five powers), each of whom was endowed with the power of the veto; an Assembly, that included the smaller countries; and the UN Trusteeship Council, which guided former colonies to independence. Other limbs of the UN organism included the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Early victories for the UN included peace preservation in Iran, Kashmir, and other trouble spots, and a large role in the creation of the Jewish state of Israel.
In 1946, Bernard Baruch was appointed to lead an agency to inspect all nuclear facilities to prevent the manufacturing of nuclear weapons. Russia�s rejection of the Baruch plan meant that the one chance to retard the monstrous propensities of nuclear technology in its infancy was lost.

In 1948 Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg signed a defensive alliance at Brussels. The US was invited to join. This posed a dilemma: while the US had historically avoided entangling alliance (especially during peacetime), US participation could strengthen the containment of the Soviet Union, provide the framework for reintegrating Germany into the European family, and reassure European and other nations alike that the US would not abandon them to Soviet submission. Truman decided to enter into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Congress approved the treaty on July 21, 1949. The twelve original members pledged that an attack on one was an attack on all, and that, if necessary, they would respond with armed force. Greece and Turkey joined in 1952; West Germany in 1955. NATO�s threefold purpose was summed up as "to keep the Russians out, the Germans down, and the Americans in."

Russian anti-sentiment

Mutual suspicions were abundant between the USSR and the US:

Held in 1945-1946 in Nuremburg, Germany, the Nuremburg Trials saw to twelve accused Nazis being hanged and seven more jailed.
As for Germany�s fate, it had already been divided into four zones (controlled by France, USSR, Britain, and the US). While Russia wanted to exact huge reparations from the country and some Americans wanted to completely de-industrialize them, it was decided that a healthy and industrial German economy was indispensable to European recovery. Russia, claiming rights to reparations, tightened its grip on its zone of Germany, as East Germany and West Germany began to promote reuniting Germany. In 1948, Soviets cut off rail and highway access to Berlin (in the heart of East Germany). The Americans instituted the Berlin Airlift in the midst of tension, lasting for nearly a year, to ferry thousands of tons of supplies. The Soviets lifted their blockade in May 1949, and in the same year, East and West Germany formally became separate countries.

Cold War � Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan

In 1946 Stalin broke an agreement to withdraw his troops out of northern oil-rich Iran after WWII. When he used the troops to aid a rebel movement, Truman sent a stinging protest, and Stalin backed down.
In 1947 George F. Kennan issued his "containment doctrine," in which he held that Russia, by nature, was an expansionary nation. In this year, Truman adopted a "get-tough-with-Russia" policy. Truman�s first act was to relieve Britain of the duty of defending Greece against communist pressure. On Mach 12th of this year, he issued the Truman Doctrine and asked Congress for $400 million to aid Greece and Turkey. Truman stated that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." Many argued that this doctrine would "polarize" the world into a pro-Soviet side and a pro-American side.
Also in 1947, while western European nations were lingering unstably and thus threatened by inside Communist parties, Secretary of State George C. Marshall invited Europeans to band together and work out a join plan for economic revitalization. It they did so, so held the Marshall Plan of July 1947, the US would supply them with substantial financial aid. The plan called for $12.5 billion over four years, given to 16 countries. Previously, US had given $2 billion, under the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the UN, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. However, Congress was reluctant to approve the transfer of this money until Czechoslovakia fell to a communist-sponsored coup in April of 1948. Also in 1948, Truman�s decision to support the creating of Israel spurred anti-US sentiment from Arab oil countries. This would lead to problems in the future decades.

Legislation at Home

In 1947 Congress passed the National Security Act of 1947, which created the Department of Defense, situated in the Pentagon building. This was headed by the secretary of defense, who was advised by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, consisting of non-cabinet status secretaries of the navy, army, and air force. The act also established the National Security Council (NSC) to advise the president on security matters and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which coordinated the government�s foreign fact-gathering.
In 1948 Congress revived the conscription draft of the Selective Service System.

The Arms Race

In September of 1949, Russia test-exploded an atomic bomb. This triggered Truman�s order to develop a hydrogen bomb. While ours was completed in 1952, Russia surprised the world a second time by creating their own H-bomb the following year. Each side furiously began to build more destructive weapons than the other, vigorously trying to outdo each other in a nuclear arms race.

Cold War � Japan, China, and Korea

Reconstruction in Japan was easier than in Germany. General Douglas MacArthur instituted a process of democratizing Japan. Firstly, top war criminals were tried in Tokyo from 1946 to 1948; 18 were imprisoned, while 7 were hanged. In 1946 a constitution was adopted, which introduced Japan to Western-style democracy. This paved the way for an economic recovery that made Japan into one of the mightiest industrial powers.
In China a civil war had been raging between communists and the Nationalists. The Nationalists, under Generalissimo Jiang Jieshi, were forced by the communists, under Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung), to flee to Formosa (Taiwan). This was the most depressing defeat for America and its allies during the Cold War.
In June 1950, in Korea, shooting broke out. When Japan had fallen after WWII, Russia took all of Korea above the 38th parallel, and the US took all the area below. Secretary of State Dean Acheson claimed to wash his hands of the struggle between rival regimes in early 1950, saying that Korea was out of the essential US defense perimeter in the Pacific. On June 25, 1950, North Koreans charged south, forcing South Koreans to be shoved back to Pusan, at the bottom of the peninsula. Also on this day, Truman, responding to a fortunate absence of Russia from the UN Security Council, obtained a unanimous condemnation of North Korea as an aggressor. General Douglas MacArthur, already in the area, was appointed the UN commander of the entire operation, though he took his orders from the White House, not the Security Council.
Buried previously, the National Security Council Memorandum Number 68 (NSC-68), which called for the US to quadruple its defense spending, was resurrected as a result of the Korean crisis. Truman, in 1950, ordered for an increase in military buildup, which boosted the US armed services to 3.5 million men and US defense spending to $50 billion to year � about 13% of the GNP.
MacArthur landed at Inchon on September 15, 1950, in the middle of the entirety of North and South Korea. North Koreans were sent retreating northward within two weeks. MacArthur proceeded well above the 38th parallel, but as he approached the Yalu River (boundary between China and Korea), he was warned by Chinese communists to not advance the strategic boundary. He pooh-poohed (ignored) the idle threat, only to receive hordes of Chinese hostiles fall upon him in November of 1950. This sent the UN forces reeling back to a stalemate at the 38th parallel. The Joint Chiefs of Staff declared this would be "the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy" if it continued. Insubordinate MacArthur ignored the order and was relieved of duty on April 11, 1951. He returned home a hero, with Truman branded with ill fame. In July of 1951, truce discussions began, but dragged on for nearly two years, while men continued to die.

Eisenhower�s First Administration of the Cold War � Policies, China Vietnam, and the Middle East

With Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in his Cabinet (stating that the almost contradictory goals of foreign policy were to (A) not only stop Communism�s spread, but to go so far as to liberate captive peoples from it; and to (B) simultaneously cut military spending, and retroactively balance the budget) he and Eisenhower accepted the "policy of boldness" in early 1954. An air fleet of nuclear bomb-equipped superbombers (the Strategic Air Command � SAC) was constructed and in 1955 the President threatened to inflict nuclear reprisals if Communist China continued to bomb small islands near Taiwan.
With Stalin�s death in 1953, Nikita Khruschev took the reigns of the Soviet Union and rejected Eisenhower�s proposal for peace at the Geneva summit conference in 1955. In May of 1955, Soviets surprisingly agreed to pull out of Austria. Also in 1955 Soviets and Eastern Europeans signed the Warsaw Pact, which created a red military force to counterpart the NATO forces in the West. In 1956 a Hungarian revolt pleaded to the US for help, but did not find it. Changing its immigration laws, the US did, however, accept 30,000 Hungarian fugitives.
In East Asia Nationalist movements had tried to break free from French control. Ho Chi Minh�s previous attempts for US support resulted in his, and many other leaders�, conversion to communism. In March 1954, the Viet Minh guerilla warriors in Vietnam surrounded the French fortress Dienbienphu. This put the "policy of boldness" to the test, and while Nixon, Dulles, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff urged for bombings, Eisenhower sought some measure other than war. A conference at Geneva split Vietnam roughly along the 17th parallel. In South Vietnam, pro-Western Ngo Dinh Diem was situated in Saigon, and the US�s promise of elections within 2 years went unfulfilled. In return for certain social reforms, Eisenhower gave military and financial aid to Diem, who saw to the reforms slowly. In response, Dulled crafted the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in late 1954 (including Britain, France, and US among the 8 members) in a hardly-successful attempt to boost his South Vietnamese policies.
Meanwhile, trouble was brewing in the oil-rich Middle East. In Iran, supposedly Kremlin-influenced, willingness to export petroleum to the West began to dwindle. In 1953, the US CIA executed a coup that installed the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, as a pseudo-dictator. In the short run, it secured oil for a brief period of time, but in the long run, it left behind it a sour taste of resentment. In Egypt, President Gamal Abdel Nasser sought funds to build a dam on the upper Nile for irrigation and power. Britain and US offer financial aid, but when Egypt decided to momentarily flirt with Russia, Dulles withdrew the offer. Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal project, which essentially controlled much of the oil transference. France and Britain staged a join assault on Egypt in October of 1956, keeping the US in the dark. When the two nations ran out of oil and turned to the US, Uncle Sam, oil supplier in two world wars, refused to send any, and the UN police were sent to maintain order for the first time. No longer, though, were the US oil reserves by any means as abundant as before. In 1957 the Eisenhower Doctrine was issued, which pledged US military and financial aid to Middle Eastern nations threatened by Communism. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, and Venezuela, in 1960, formed the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Eisenhower�s Second Administration of the Cold war � Soviets and South America

On October 4, 1957, the Sputnik I, weighing 184 lbs., was launched into orbit. In November the Sputnik II, weighing 1,120 lbs. and ferrying a dog, was sent aloft. This intimidated Americans, who the Communists branded as being industrially inferior. In late 1958 Congress passed the National Defense and Education Act (NDEA), which gave a total of $887 million in grants to improve the teaching of the sciences and languages.
In Latin America, there was resentment: The US spent markedly less money there than in Europe in aid and a CIA-endorsed coup in Guatemala in 1954. In Cuba, dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown by Fidel Castro in 1959. Because Cuba placed an embargo on US-bound sugar and sided with Moscow (who protected Cuba with threats to the US), the US cut off diplomatic relations with them in early 1961. Congress also passed the "Marshall Plan" for Latin America, which gave $500 million initially, though the money was not as vital as it had been prior.
In 1959 Alaska and Hawaii attained statehood.