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Era VI · 1953–1964

Eisenhower and the Cold War

Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Modern Republicanism” accepted much of the New Deal while ending the Korean War, building the interstate highways and waging a restrained Cold War—as a new conservative movement took shape in opposition.

Overview

By 1952 Republicans had lost five straight presidential elections. Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, leader of the party’s conservative Midwestern wing, sought the nomination for the third time, but internationalist Republicans led by Governor Thomas E. Dewey and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. persuaded General Dwight D. Eisenhower—the wartime Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and NATO’s first supreme commander—to run. At the Chicago convention Eisenhower’s managers won a decisive fight over contested Southern delegations, and he was nominated on the first ballot, with Senator Richard M. Nixon of California as his running mate. Campaigning against “Korea, Communism and corruption” and promising to go to Korea himself, Eisenhower won 442 electoral votes, and Republicans narrowly captured both houses of Congress.

Eisenhower called his philosophy “Modern Republicanism”: conservative in fiscal matters, moderate on social programs and internationalist abroad. Rather than repeal the New Deal, he expanded Social Security to cover millions more workers, raised the minimum wage, created the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, balanced the federal budget three times, and signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which authorized a 41,000-mile interstate system. Within six months of taking office he secured an armistice in Korea. His “New Look” defense policy relied on nuclear deterrence, alliances and covert action to hold down military spending; he sent aid but not troops to the French in Indochina and refused to back Britain, France and Israel in the Suez crisis of 1956. After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, he created NASA and signed the National Defense Education Act. Congress added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 and made “In God We Trust” the national motto in 1956.

Civil rights tested Eisenhower’s gradualism. His choice for chief justice, former California governor Earl Warren, wrote the unanimous 1954 opinion in Brown v. Board of Education striking down segregated public schools. Eisenhower completed the desegregation of the armed forces and pressed to end segregation in federal facilities in Washington, though he declined to say publicly whether he agreed with Brown. When Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to keep nine Black students out of Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957, Eisenhower federalized the Guard and sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the court’s order—the first time since Reconstruction that a president had sent federal troops to protect the rights of Black citizens in the South. He also signed the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, the first civil rights laws since Reconstruction, which passed with the support of most congressional Republicans over the opposition of most Southern Democrats.

Eisenhower’s moderation also provoked a conservative reaction within the party. William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review in 1955 to challenge both liberalism and the Republican establishment; Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona publicly broke with the administration over its 1957 budget and published The Conscience of a Conservative in 1960; and that September young conservatives meeting at the Buckley family home in Sharon, Connecticut, adopted the Sharon Statement and founded Young Americans for Freedom. Vice President Nixon lost the 1960 election to John F. Kennedy in one of the closest popular votes in American history. In his Farewell Address of January 17, 1961, Eisenhower warned against the “unwarranted influence” of the “military-industrial complex.” Conservative activists soon began organizing to nominate Goldwater, setting the stage for the party’s turn in 1964.

Timeline

  1. Eisenhower nominated over Taft

    After his supporters win the “Fair Play” fight over contested Southern delegations, Dwight D. Eisenhower is nominated on the first ballot in Chicago, defeating Senator Robert A. Taft. Senator Richard M. Nixon of California is chosen for vice president.

    Historical Record

  2. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare created

    The first new cabinet department since 1913 brings Social Security, federal health agencies and education programs together under Secretary Oveta Culp Hobby, the second woman to serve in a president’s cabinet.

    Historical Record

  3. Korean War armistice

    Six months after Eisenhower’s inauguration, negotiators sign an armistice at Panmunjom ending the fighting in Korea, leaving the peninsula divided close to where it was when the war began.

    Primary Source

  4. Brown v. Board of Education

    Chief Justice Earl Warren, appointed by Eisenhower the previous fall, delivers the unanimous opinion holding that state-mandated segregation of public schools violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection, overruling the “separate but equal” doctrine of 1896.

    Primary Source

  5. “Under God” added to the Pledge of Allegiance

    On Flag Day, Eisenhower signs legislation adding the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.

    Primary Source

  6. Senate censures McCarthy

    After the televised Army–McCarthy hearings, the Senate votes 67 to 22 to condemn Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s conduct as contrary to senatorial traditions, on a resolution introduced by Republican Ralph Flanders of Vermont.

    Primary Source

  7. National Review founded

    William F. Buckley Jr. publishes the first issue of a magazine that would work to unite traditionalists, free-market libertarians and anti-Communists into a conservative movement independent of both liberalism and the Republican establishment.

    Historical Record

  8. Federal-Aid Highway Act

    Eisenhower signs the law authorizing a 41,000-mile network of interstate highways and $25 billion for construction over thirteen years, financed largely through federal fuel taxes.

    Primary Source

  9. “In God We Trust” becomes the national motto

    Congress designates “In God We Trust” as the national motto of the United States; the year before, it had required the phrase on all American currency.

    Historical Record

  10. Civil Rights Act of 1957

    The first federal civil rights law since Reconstruction creates the Commission on Civil Rights, provides for a new civil rights division in the Justice Department and authorizes federal suits to protect voting rights. It passes despite a record filibuster of more than 24 hours by Senator Strom Thurmond.

    Primary Source

  11. Troops to Little Rock

    After mobs prevent nine Black students from attending Central High School, Eisenhower issues Executive Order 10730, placing the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and sending 1,000 paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the court’s desegregation order.

    Primary Source

  12. Civil Rights Act of 1960

    Eisenhower signs a second civil rights law strengthening federal oversight of voting and making it a federal crime to obstruct court orders, including school desegregation orders, by force or threat of force.

    Primary Source

  13. The Sharon Statement

    About one hundred young conservatives meeting at the Buckley family home in Sharon, Connecticut, adopt a statement of principles joining free markets, limited government and anti-Communism, and found Young Americans for Freedom.

    Primary Source

  14. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address

    In a televised address three days before leaving office, Eisenhower warns against the “unwarranted influence” of the “military-industrial complex” and against allowing public policy to become captive to a scientific-technological elite.

    Primary Source

People

  • President, 1953–1961; Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II

  • Vice president, 1953–1961; Republican nominee, 1960

    Richard M. Nixon

    Survived a 1952 controversy over a political expense fund with his televised “Checkers” speech and lost narrowly to John F. Kennedy in 1960.

  • Senator from Ohio; Senate majority leader, 1953

    Robert A. Taft

    Eisenhower’s rival for the 1952 nomination, he became a key Senate ally before his death in July 1953.

  • Chief justice of the United States, 1953–1969

    Earl Warren

    A three-term Republican governor of California and the party’s 1948 vice-presidential nominee; wrote the Court’s opinion in Brown v. Board of Education.

  • Secretary of state, 1953–1959

    John Foster Dulles

    Architect of the administration’s alliance system and its doctrine of “massive retaliation.”

  • First secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1953–1955

    Oveta Culp Hobby

    Wartime director of the Women’s Army Corps and the second woman to serve in a president’s cabinet.

  • Senator from Illinois, 1951–1969; Senate Republican leader from 1959

    Everett M. Dirksen

    A former Taft supporter who became a pivotal figure in passing civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

  • Founder of National Review (1955)

    William F. Buckley Jr.

    Made his magazine the intellectual center of the postwar conservative movement.

  • Senator from Arizona, 1953–1965

    Barry Goldwater

    Critic of “Modern Republicanism,” author of The Conscience of a Conservative (1960) and the 1964 Republican nominee.

  • Governor of New York, 1959–1973

    Nelson A. Rockefeller

    Leader of the party’s liberal eastern wing; his 1960 platform agreement with Nixon angered conservatives.

Documents

Elections

YearElectionResultElectoral votes
1952Election of 1952Eisenhower won about 55 percent of the popular vote and carried four states of the once-solid Democratic South, while Republicans narrowly won both houses of Congress.Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) defeats Adlai Stevenson (D)442 of 531
19541954 Midterm ElectionsDemocrats won narrow majorities in both chambers. They would hold the House for the next forty years and the Senate until 1981.Democrats regain both houses of Congress—
1956Election of 1956In a rematch, Eisenhower won about 57 percent of the popular vote, but Democrats kept control of both houses of Congress.Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) defeats Adlai Stevenson (D)457 of 531
19581958 Midterm ElectionsAmid a recession and anxiety after Sputnik, Democrats made heavy gains in both houses, leaving Republicans in a weak position for the 1960 campaign.Democrats win large majorities—
1960Election of 1960In one of the closest popular votes in American history, Kennedy led Nixon by about two-tenths of a percentage point. Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia received 15 electoral votes, 14 of them from unpledged Southern electors.John F. Kennedy (D) defeats Richard M. Nixon (R)303 of 537
1964Election of 1964Goldwater carried only Arizona and five Deep South states, but his campaign transformed the party’s activist base and foreshadowed its later strength in the South.Lyndon B. Johnson (D) defeats Barry Goldwater (R)486 of 538

Policies

  • 1953

    Department of Health, Education, and Welfare

    Created by reorganization plan, HEW gathered Social Security, public health and federal education programs into the first new cabinet department in forty years.

    Historical Record

  • 1954–1956

    Expanding Social Security

    Rather than roll back the New Deal, Eisenhower signed amendments extending Social Security to millions of farmers, self-employed workers and others, and in 1956 accepted the addition of disability insurance.

    Historical Record

  • 1956

    The Interstate Highway System

    The Federal-Aid Highway Act authorized a 41,000-mile network of interstate and defense highways, which the National Archives describes as the biggest public works project in the nation’s history. Eisenhower’s interest dated to the Army’s 1919 transcontinental convoy and his wartime view of Germany’s autobahns.

    Primary Source

  • 1953–1961

    The “New Look” in national security

    Eisenhower sought to keep the economy strong while waging the Cold War, relying on nuclear deterrence, alliances and covert operations rather than large conventional forces.

    Historical Record

  • 1953

    Atoms for Peace

    In a December 1953 address to the United Nations General Assembly, Eisenhower proposed international cooperation on peaceful uses of atomic energy, a proposal that led to the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1957.

    Primary Source

  • 1957–1960

    Civil rights legislation

    The Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, the first since Reconstruction, created the Commission on Civil Rights, strengthened federal protection of voting and made forcible obstruction of federal court orders a crime.

    Primary Source

  • 1958

    Science and space after Sputnik

    Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA as a civilian agency, and the National Defense Education Act, which funded science, mathematics and foreign-language education.

    Historical Record

  • 1959

    Statehood for Alaska and Hawaii

    Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states in 1959, the first states admitted since 1912.

    Historical Record

Speeches

  • April 16, 1953

    The Chance for Peace

    Dwight D. Eisenhower

    Weeks after Stalin’s death, Eisenhower told the American Society of Newspaper Editors that the arms race carried a crushing human cost and invited the new Soviet leadership to take concrete steps toward peace.

    “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
    Primary Source

  • December 8, 1953

    Atoms for Peace

    Dwight D. Eisenhower

    Before the United Nations General Assembly, Eisenhower described the dangers of the atomic arms race and offered to work with other nations, including the Soviet Union, on peaceful uses of atomic energy.

    Primary Source

  • September 24, 1957

    Address on the Situation in Little Rock

    Dwight D. Eisenhower

    A radio and television address explaining why he had sent federal troops to enforce the court-ordered desegregation of Central High School.

    “Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.”
    Primary Source

  • January 17, 1961

    Farewell Address

    Dwight D. Eisenhower

    A televised address from the Oval Office three days before Eisenhower left the presidency, reflecting on the permanent defense establishment created by the Cold War.

    “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
    Primary Source

Criticism & Debate

A historical institution earns trust by recording disagreement. It does not rewrite history around what a movement believes today. Each perspective below is stated in terms its own proponents would recognize.

Opposing View / Debate

Modern Republicanism or a conservative alternative?

Eisenhower’s acceptance of the New Deal’s core programs and of permanent international commitments divided Republicans who had spent twenty years opposing both.

Eisenhower Republicans

Eisenhower and allies such as Dewey, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and later Nelson Rockefeller argued that the party could win and govern only by accepting Social Security and other established programs, balancing budgets and leading the free world through NATO and other alliances—an outlook Eisenhower called “Modern Republicanism.”

Taft Republicans and the new conservatives

Taft’s followers had long opposed the growth of federal power and questioned permanent overseas commitments; Taft himself voted against the North Atlantic Treaty. By the late 1950s Goldwater, National Review and the young activists of the Sharon Statement argued that “me-too” Republicanism conceded too much to liberalism, and many conservatives saw Nixon’s 1960 platform agreement with Rockefeller as a surrender.

Historians

Historians see the 1950s as the decade in which the modern conservative movement organized largely outside the party’s leadership, setting up the contest for the nomination that Goldwater won in 1964.

Sources

  1. Dwight D. Eisenhower: Domestic Affairs · Miller Center, University of Virginia
Opposing View / Debate

Did Eisenhower move too slowly on civil rights?

Eisenhower enforced court-ordered desegregation and signed the first civil rights laws since Reconstruction, but critics then and since have faulted his caution.

Critics

Civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., urged stronger presidential leadership. Critics note that Eisenhower never publicly endorsed the reasoning of Brown v. Board of Education, acted at Little Rock only after mobs defied a court order, and accepted amendments that weakened the 1957 act before it passed.

Defenders

Defenders point out that Eisenhower appointed Chief Justice Warren and federal judges who enforced desegregation in the South, sent troops to Little Rock, pressed to desegregate federal facilities in Washington, completed the integration of the armed forces and won the first civil rights laws in more than eighty years with strong Republican support. He argued that lasting change required persuasion as well as law.

Southern Democrats

Most Southern members of Congress, nearly all of them Democrats, signed the 1956 Southern Manifesto pledging to use all lawful means to reverse Brown, and Senator Strom Thurmond filibustered the 1957 act for more than 24 hours; they described federal intervention as a violation of the rights of the states.

Sources

  1. Civil Rights: The Little Rock School Integration Crisis · Eisenhower Presidential Library
  2. Dwight Eisenhower and the Central High Crisis · National Park Service
Opposing View / Debate

How much for defense? The New Look and the military-industrial complex

Eisenhower, a five-star general, insisted on restraining military spending even as critics warned that the country was falling behind the Soviet Union.

Eisenhower

Eisenhower argued that security depended on a sound economy as well as military strength, relied on nuclear deterrence and alliances instead of large conventional forces, and in his Farewell Address warned that a permanent arms industry could acquire “unwarranted influence” over government.

Critics of the New Look

Democrats such as John F. Kennedy and Senator Stuart Symington, and Army leaders such as General Maxwell Taylor, argued that reliance on massive retaliation left too few options short of nuclear war, and after Sputnik they warned of a “missile gap” with the Soviet Union.

Historians

The feared missile gap turned out to favor the United States, and since the 1970s many historians have credited Eisenhower’s restraint. Others fault his administration’s reliance on nuclear threats and covert operations, including the CIA-backed overthrow of governments in Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954.

Sources

  1. Dwight D. Eisenhower: Foreign Affairs · Miller Center, University of Virginia
  2. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (1961) · National Archives

Images

Archival image collections. Rights are checked item by item before anything is reproduced on this site.

Sources

  1. War and Reorganization: 1941–1963 · U.S. Senate
  2. Dwight D. Eisenhower: Campaigns and Elections · Miller Center, University of Virginia
  3. Dwight D. Eisenhower: Domestic Affairs · Miller Center, University of Virginia
  4. Dwight D. Eisenhower: Foreign Affairs · Miller Center, University of Virginia
  5. Executive Order 10730: Desegregation of Central High School (1957) · National Archives
  6. Civil Rights Act of 1957 · Eisenhower Presidential Library
  7. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 · U.S. House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
  8. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (1961) · National Archives

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