Eisenhower Administration

Relationship with Richard Nixon

Before Nixon was selected by the Republican Party as Eisenhower's running mate, Eisenhower did not know personally Nixon. While in office, Eisenhower had a unique relationship with Nixon. Eisenhower focused primarily on policy, which allowed Nixon to campaign as the face of the Republican Party. That is not to say Nixon was hands-off though, after Truman's unpreparedness to take on the presidency after FDR's death, Eisenhower made sure to include Nixon in decision-making meetings and gave him a variety of assignments.

Photograph of Eisenhower and Nixon/ Wikimedia Commons

Despite Nixon's increased involvement compared to previous administrations, at the end of the first term, Eisenhower was not confident that Nixon would perform well in the job of President. Eisenhower attempted to transfer Nixon to a different role in the administration for the 1956 election, but Nixon would not agree, and Eisenhower relented for fear of tearing the party apart.

Eisenhower Administration: Timeline

Below is a brief timeline of the key events of the Eisenhower Administration.

Eisenhower Administration: Accomplishments

Eisenhower had a variety of accomplishments during his popular administration. To many Americans, the Eisenhower years were a time of prosperity and some small progress in the area of Civil Rights. After his 1952 election, Eisenhower was elected to a second term by an even greater margin, and even enjoyed considerable popularity after leaving office.

Dwight Eisenhower/Wikimedia Commons

Eisenhower Administration: Economy

Eisenhower was extremely successful in areas related to the economy. While many Republicans pushed him to cut taxes, he created the highest upper end tax rates in American history to not just eliminate the deficit, but to create a budget surplus. The economy grew steadily, for an end result of 45% personal income increase with no inflation. Although federal spending decreased during Eisenhower, he maintained the New Deal programs and even expanded Social Security.

Eisenhower Administration: Civil Rights

Eisenhower had a mixed record on the subject of Civil Rights. Segregation in the South was an international embarrassment after fighting Nazi Germany in WWII, and often fodder for Soviet propaganda. This led Eisenhower to demand desegregation of the military, which had begun under Truman, and more equitable federal hiring practices.

African American students were given military protection in 1957 to attend a recently desegregated school in Little Rock, Arkansas/ Wikimedia Commons

When the US Supreme Court decided that segregated schools were unconstitutional in 1954, Eisenhower did not give the issue much public comment and privately sympathized with Southern opposition to school segregation. He did, however, enforce school desegregation in Arkansas in 1957. Although Eisenhower proposed Civil Rights bills in 1957 and 1960, both were heavily watered down by pro-segregation Southern Democrats before being passed and signed.

Eisenhower Administration: Infrastructure

One of Eisenhower's greatest long-term impacts was the creation of the interstate highway system, passed by Congress with the Federal Aid Highway System Act of 1956. Since 1954, Eisenhower had a committee working on a system to connect the nation through interstate highways. The program served a variety of needs including interstate commerce, meeting the needs of expanding automobile ownership, and defense maneuvers in the event that the United States ever had a domestic military conflict.

Eisenhower Administration: Cold War

Foreign policy in the Eisenhower administration was entirely built around the Cold War. His "New Look" national security policy focused on the Communist threat with its four points: balancing the domestic economy with defense spending, nuclear weapons as a deterrent, CIA covert actions, and aligning foreign countries with the US.

Korean War

Eisenhower had been elected with a mandate to end the Korean War, which the Truman Administration had ineptly handled according to many Americans. Amid threats of nuclear force from Eisenhower, China and North Korea finally agreed to end hostilities with the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953. Soon, the US would enter into an agreement with South Korea for a continual US troop presence in the country.

Senator Joe McCarthy

During the 1952 presidential election, Eisenhower had not confronted McCarthy and his methods, despite his own strong disapproval. Instead, Eisenhower worked quietly behind the scenes to undermine McCarthy from within the Republican Party.

Joe McCarthy/Wikimedia Commons

McCarthy's attacks had finally gone too far for even many ardent Anti-Communists to stomach when he accused the US Army of being full of Communists, leading to the Congressional Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954. Eisenhower allowed members of his administration to testify against McCarthy as having asked for improper special favors, resulting in his censure and political decline.

Space, Technology, and Education

The USSR beat the US into space with the launch of its Sputnik satellite in 1957, and the US was further embarrassed by the failure of a televised missile launch that occurred months later. After what would much later turn out to be false claims of a massive Soviet nuclear missile capability made by Soviet leaders, US citizens began to fear that the Soviet Union was overtaking the United States in technology.

Eisenhower answered this with many investments such as the creation of what would become the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DAPRA). The Agency funded science education under the National Defense Education Act, and led to the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958.

Covert Action

Under the Eisenhower administration, covert actions involving the CIA abroad increased. CIA backed coups resulted in regime change in Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954.

Eisenhower Doctrine

When the Soviet Union threatened to get involved in a conflict between Egypt, Britain, France, and Israel over the Suez Canal, Eisenhower became very concerned with Middle Eastern Affairs. This led to his "Eisenhower Doctrine", approved by congress in 1957, that stated that the US should economically support Middle Eastern countries and come to the aid of any country that asks for help fighting Communism. This led to the US intervention in Lebanon in 1958.

Eisenhower Administration Vietnam

The conflict in Vietnam was where the old imperialist order met the new realities of the Cold War. Vietnam had long been a French colony, but Viet Minh Communists had been fighting to take the country from the French backed semi-autonomous State of Vietnam government. France was now at a stalemate and asking for US help when Eisenhower entered the Presidency.

French Officer and Vietnamese Soldiers/Wikimedia Commons

Eisenhower's Domino Theory argument did not convince Congress to intervene on France's behalf, and the French were expelled after the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. After China and the USSR decided to support a divided Vietnam, the US began supporting the weak but anti-Communist South Vietnamese government. US support of South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem, who refused to hold reunification elections and brutally repressed the Buddhist population, would eventually bring the US into the spiraling Vietnam War.

End of the Eisenhower Administration

After Eisenhower's tenure as president ended in 1961, Democrat John F Kennedy took office after a hotly competed Presidential election against Eisenhower's Vice President Richard Nixon.