Presidents Truman to Ford Powerpoint

President Harry Truman(D)-33rd1945-1953

• Became Vice President for FDR in January, 1945

• Took over for FDR when he died in April, 1945

• On of the most unpopular presidents of all time when he left office-22% approval rating

• Rating has improved greatly over the last 60 years

Truman’s Presidential Accomplishments

• President when WWII ended with Germany and Japan

• Potsdam Conference/Declaration

• (German consequences/ Japan’s surrender or else face destruction)

• Decided to use the atomic bomb against Japan

• “We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.”

• Harry Truman

• Had to deal with transition from wartime economy to peacetime economy

• Helped organize and later join the United Nations

• Took a hard-line stance against communism and the Soviet Union-Policy of Containment

• Desegregated the US military

• Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan were passed

• Created the CIA and the national Security Council

• “The Buck Stops Here”

The Fair Deal

• Similar to FDR’s New deal of the 1930’s

• Aimed to promote economic development and social welfare

• Faced a lot of opposition from Southern Democrats and Republicans

• Most Fair Deal proposals did not get passed

• Civil Rights• Housing• Social Security• Minimum Wage• Health• Labor• Education• Agriculture

• Recognized Israel as a homeplace for the Jewish people

• “Hitler had been murdering Jews right and left. I saw it, and I dream about it even to this day. The Jews needed some place where they could go. It is my attitude that the American government couldn't stand idly by while the victims of Hitler's madness are not allowed to build new lives.”

• President Truman • Got the US involved in

Vietnam by giving aid to France

• Berlin Airlift• NATO established• Chinese Civil War ends• McCarthyism• The Korean Conflict and firing

of General Douglass MacArthur

• "I fired him [MacArthur] because he wouldn't respect the authority of the President ... I didn't fire him because he was a dumb sob, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.“ Truman

• Assassination attempt over Puerto Rican independence

1948 Election

• Truman(D) vs Thomas Dewey(R)

• Truman came from way behind to win

• Newspapers and polls all assumed Dewey would win easily

President Dwight Eisenhower(R)-34th1953-1961

• Famous WWII general• Decided to join the

Republican Party after WWII

• This all but guaranteed him a win in the 1953 election

• Richard Nixon was his Vice-President

• Diagnosed with Crohn's disease and had a minor stroke while president

Eisenhower’s Presidential Accomplishments

• Dominated by the Cold War-Containment Policy

• Also used CIA to do covert-ops to disrupt communist governments abroad(Iran/Guatamala)

• Opened relations with Spain

• Ended the Korean Conflict as promised in his 1952 election campaign

• Defensive alliances were signed with South Korea and Taiwan

• SEATO was formed

• Increased US involvement in Southeast Asia(Vietnam)-US advisors sent

• Developed idea that nuclear weapons would be defensive weapons(deterrence)

• NASA created due to Soviet Sputnik launch

• US spy plane(U-2) was shot down over USSR

• Allowed McCarthy to do his thing but privately did not approve

• Eisenhower Doctrine

Ike and Chiang Kai-shek

• Believed in laissez-faire

• Believed in a balanced budget

• Deported around 1 million illegal immigrants(mostly Mexicans)

• Sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to help in the desegregation of all public schools-1954-Brown case

• Helped pass the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 which created the United States' Interstate Highways

President John F. Kennedy(D)-35th1961-1963

• Served in WWII• Was a US Representative

and Senator from Massachusetts before becoming President

• Married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier

• First and only Catholic president

• Youngest elected president and second youngest president

• Assassinated in 1963 in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald

1960 Election

• Ran against Vice-President Richard Nixon

• First presidential televised debates took place

• Many say this helped JFK win the election

Kennedy’s Presidential Accomplishments

• "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." JFK

• Cold War Issues dominated Kennedy’s presidency

• Berlin Wall was built in 1961

• Bay of Pigs invasion-1961

• Cuban Missile Crisis• Alliance for Progress

with Latin America• Kennedy increased

the number of helicopters, military advisors and undeclared U.S. Special Forces in the Vietnam

• The CIA helped the new Ba'ath Party government overthrow Communists in Iraq. This new party systematically murdered large numbers of Iraq's educated elite—killings in which Saddam Hussein himself is said to have participated

• Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1963

The New Frontier

• promised federal funding for:

• 1. education

• 2. medical care for the elderly

• 3. economic aid to rural regions and

• 4. government intervention to halt the recession

• 5. end racial discrimination

• Peace Corps was established in 1961 where Americans volunteer to help underdeveloped nations in areas such as education, farming, health care, and construction

• Signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a federal law aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex

• "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish—JFK Moonshot speech in 1961

President Lyndon Johnson(D)-36th1963-1969

• JFK’s Vice-President• Took over as

President after JFK was assassinated

Johnson’s Presidential Accomplishments

• Put together the Warren Commission to investigate the JFK assassination

• Passed Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed most forms of racial segregation

• Passed Voting Rights Act(1965) which outlawed discrimination in voting, thus allowing millions of southern blacks to vote for the first time

• Started affirmative action laws• Passed Immigration Act of 1965 which allowed

more non-European people to immigrate to US. Immigration more than doubled between 1965-1970

The Great Society

• Johnson’s plan to:

• aid education

• attack disease

• Medicare and Medicaid

• urban renewal

• beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions

• war on poverty

• control and prevention of crime

• removal of obstacles to the right to vote

The Great Society

• Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965--For the first time, large amounts of federal money went to public schools and the focus was poor schools

• Higher Education Act of 1965, which focused on funding lower income students, including grants, work-study money, and government loans

• set up the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts

• Economic Opportunity Act helped start Head Start, food stamps, Work Study, Medicare and Medicaid

Medicare

The Great Society

• Gun Control Act of 1968 regulates the firearms industry and firearms owners. Passed in response to the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK.

Johnson and Vietnam

• The Vietnam Conflict dominated much of Johnson’s presidency

• Believed in Domino Theory

• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution(1964)-Congress gave Johnson power to wage war in Vietnam as he saw fit

1968 Election

• "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.” LBJ

President Richard Nixon(R)-37th1969-1974

• Vice-President of Eisenhower

• Lost 1960 election to JFK

• the only person to be elected twice to both the Presidency and the Vice Presidency

• Only President to resign from office

“Silent Majority"

Nixon’s Presidential Accomplishments

• Vietnam Conflict dominated much of his presidency-war became very unpopular

• Promised to end the war— “Peace with honor”• Expanded the war to Cambodia and Laos-

bombing Ho Chi Minh Trail• Started pulling troops out of Vietnam as

promised • The Nixon Doctrine- “Vietnamization” of the war• Paris Peace Accords signed in 1973 stopped the

fighting and got the US out of the war

Environmental Decade

• National Environmental Policy Act

• Clean Air Act of 1970

• Federal Water Pollution Control Act

• Established many government agencies:

• 1. Environmental Protection Agency

• 2. Occupational Safety and Health Administration

• 3. Council on Environmental Quality

• War on Drugs-1971• Supplemental Security Income--provides $$ to

low-income people who are either aged (65 or older), blind, or disabled

• Saw large scale integration of schools in the south

• Supported affirmative action• Signed Title IX(1972) prohibiting gender

discrimination in all federally funded schools• Equal Employment Opportunity Act-enforces

laws against workplace discrimination based on an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, perceived intelligence and disability

• Abortion was legalized during Nixon’s presidency(Roe v. Wade-1973)

• US astronauts landed on the moon-1969

• Nixon approved the development of NASA's Space Shuttle program

• In 1972, President Nixon traveled to China where the president was to have direct talks with Mao Zedong and Chou En-lai

• This eased relations with the US and China and China(not Taiwan) was recognized as the official China

Nixon’s Visit to the Soviet Union

• Went to Moscow in 1972• SALT I was signed,

limiting nuclear weapons• Anti-Ballistic Missile

Treaty was signed which banned the development of systems designed to intercept incoming missiles

• This led to a new era of “peaceful co-existence” and detente with the USSR

• Supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War(1973) where Israel was attacked by Egypt and Syria

• This support of Israel led to the 1973 oil crisis where OPEC countries did not trade oil with the US as a result

• Nixon lowered the maximum U.S. speed limit to 55 miles per hour to conserve gasoline during the crisis

• Nixon took US completely off the gold standard

Watergate• Five men were caught breaking into Democratic party

headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972 to find dirt on the Democratic Party

• Two Washington Post reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, investigated the story

• Woodward and Bernstein relied on an FBI informant known as "Deep Throat" to link the men to the Nixon White House— “follow the money”

• This became one of a series of scandalous acts involving the Committee to Re-Elect the President

• Nixon downplayed the scandal and denounced the story as biased and misleading

• FBI eventually confirmed that Nixon aides had attempted to sabotage the Democrats--many began resigning and faced prosecution

• Nixon was involved by trying to cover up the break-in (obstruction of justice) and eventually resigned from the presidency

Watergate

Woodward and Berstein

Watergate

• “People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.” Nixon

Leaving Office

• “Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.” Richard Nixon

President Gerald Ford(R)-38th1974-1977

• Nixon’s Vice President• Took over when Nixon

resigned• Only Vice President and

President to never be elected• "I am acutely aware that you

have not elected me as your president by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your president with your prayers.“ Ford

• Had two assassination attempts within three weeks

Ford’s Presidential Accomplishments

• Pardoned Nixon—a “corrupt bargain”?

• Offered conditional amnesty program for Vietnam War draft dodgers who had fled to countries such as Canada

• “Whip Inflation Now” called for Americans to reduce their spending and consumption in an attempt to stop inflation

• Education for All Handicapped Children Act(1975) established special education in school throughout the US

• Continued détente with the USSR

• Ford wanted to help South Vietnam when North Vietnam invaded in 1974 but Congress refused

• By April 1975, all of Vietnam became communist

• Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act was passed to allow refugees to immigrate to the US