Last time we took a look at President Eisenhower’s personal history and some of his foreign policy. Today, we’ll continue on with the foreign policy and discuss some of the domestic issues.
In response to the Suez Crisis of 1956, Eisenhower developed the “Eisenhower Doctrine” declaring that “a Middle Eastern country could request American economic assistance or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from another state” — particularly another state controlled by international communism. The Suez Crisis had been the invasion of Egypt by Israel, Great Britain, and France. The U.S., the Soviets, and the U.N. forced the invaders to withdraw. The conflict threatened the economically significant Suez Canal. The U.S. response effectively ended Great Britain’s status as a “Great Power.” This was also the period of time during which war in Vietnam was getting started and very gradually drawing in the U.S. Eisenhower realized it would be a quagmire and mostly declined the French requests for aid in the area, but the U.S. helped form the Southeast Treaty Organization (SEATO) which would later be part of the rationale for our large scale military involvement in Vietnam.
In 1956, Eisenhower championed the creation of the Interstate Highway System as necessary to security. Eisenhower had developed an interest in the subject back in 1919 when he was part of the transcontinental convoy. He had also been impressed by the Germany’s Autobahn highways as an asset to national defense.
Others had been working on the development of the highway system for long years before it was ready for Eisenhower’s assistance. The United States Numbered Highway System had been developed primarily in the 1920s through the 40s. These were built primarily by state and local government and they were designated and numbered through coordination among the states. So, they have “U.S.” highway designations but they are not federal highways and are not designed to federal, interstate standards. When the Interstates were built, the U.S. highways were often re-routed along the Interstates or decommissioned entirely. The numbering of the Interstates goes in the opposite direction to the U.S. Highways. (So, the lower U.S. Highway numbers and the higher Interstate numbers are in the east for north/south roads.)
As automobile traffic increased, planners saw a need for such an interconnected national system to supplement the existing, largely non-freeway, United States Numbered Highways system. By the late 1930s, planning had expanded to a system of new superhighways.
In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave Thomas MacDonald, chief at the Bureau of Public Roads, a hand-drawn map of the United States marked with eight superhighway corridors for study. In 1939, Bureau of Public Roads Division of Information chief Herbert S. Fairbank wrote a report called Toll Roads and Free Roads, “the first formal description of what became the interstate highway system” and, in 1944, the similarly themed Interregional Highways.
Construction of the Interstates began in 1956 and was declared complete with the construction of the stretch of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon in Colorado.
Sputnik
On October 4, 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, marking the beginning of humans in space. Sputnik was a small satellite that was launched into orbit and stayed there until January 4, 1958. People with shortwave radios were able to hear it beeping as it rounded the globe. The launch of Sputnik had a psychological impact on Americans, convincing some that the Soviets had taken or were threats to become the premiere world power. One consequence of Sputnik was the U.S. founding the Advanced Research Projects Agency which, of course, developed ARPANET which, in turn, became the foundation for the Internet. Fear of the Russians was mixed with an enthusiasm for entry into the Space Age.
Eisenhower responded to Sputnik by launching a campaign to fund and strengthen science and higher education learning. He also used it to promote his Open Skies proposal to legitimize the high altitude U2 flyovers the U.S. was conducting in Communist territory. After Sputnik, the Soviets began exaggerating their missile capabilities. This is part of what prompted the U.S. to conduct the May 1960 U2 flyover with Francis Gary Powers as the pilot. Soviet radar and anti-aircraft capabilities were better than the US. believed, and the aircraft was shot down. Another mistake the U.S. made was believing that a pilot could not survive being shot down in a U2 from such an altitude. Powers did survive. But, before the U.S. was aware of that, they went with the cover story, saying that the aircraft was a research flight that had drifted from Turkey with an incapacitated pilot. The Soviets had already captured Powers and obtained a confession that he had been spying. By waiting until the Americans doubled down on the cover story, they ensured that the incident was highly embarrassing to the U.S. The Soviets were also able to learn from the U-2 technology.
On Civil Rights, Eisenhower accelerated the process of desegregating the military. When a Secretary of the Navy suggested mollycoddling Southerner whites and their treatment of blacks, Eisenhower said, “We have not taken and we shall not take a single backward step. There must be no second class citizens in this country.” He stated that he regarded racial discrimination as a national security issue inasmuch as communists used the U.S. history of racial discrimination and violence as a point of propaganda attacks. In 1957, the state of Arkansas refused to comply with the Supreme Court’s order in Brown v. Bd. of Education to integrate its schools. Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne to change their minds.
Eisenhower also appointed Earl Warren to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice. Warren had been Governor of California. There was apparently bad blood between Warren and Richard Nixon (also from California), and Nixon supported the nomination because he saw it as a way of getting Warren out of politics. “Eisenhower looked for an experienced jurist who could appeal to liberals in the party as well as law-and-order conservatives, noting privately that Warren ‘represents the kind of political, economic, and social thinking that I believe we need on the Supreme Court … He has a national name for integrity, uprightness, and courage that, again, I believe we need on the Court.’” The Warren Court was groundbreaking and made a number of decisions typically favored by liberals and confounding to conservatives. Among them was Brown v. Bd. of Education (1954) (banning segregation in education), Baker v. Carr (1962) (“one man, one vote” — prohibiting disproportionate representation of rural areas), Gideon v. Wainright (1963) (indigent’s right to a publicly funded criminal defense attorney), Mapp v. Ohio (1961) (excluding evidence obtained from illegal searches), and Miranda v. Arizona (1966) (“You have the right to remain silent”). Recent declines in crime suggest it was just a coincidence, but Warren was blamed for the increase in crime in the 60s and 70s.
Finally, it was under President Eisenhower that we completed our current allotment of states. Alaska was admitted January 3, 1959 and Hawaii 5-0 was admitted August 21, 1959.
Next time, we’ll get started with the Indiana Governors.
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