US History - Presidents - Truman to Ford
EQ: What were the Effects on the United States of the Presidents Truman through Ford?
Do Now: Quiz
This Lesson Overview is provided as a quick and easy lesson plan format for teachers.
Lesson Procedures are located at bottom of lesson for individuals/groups/pairs.
Print Lesson and complete as needed.
| Lesson Overview | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Utilized | Activity | Time Allocated | Mode of Activity | |||||
| ____ | Do Now | _________ / 2-5 Min | (Individual / Think-Pair-Share / Pair / Group #____) | |||||
| ____ | Mini Lesson | _________/ 15-20 Min | (Individual / Think-Pair-Share / Pair / Group #____) | |||||
| ____ | Activity | _________ / 20-30 Min | (Individual / Think-Pair-Share / Pair / Group #_____) | |||||
| ____ | Discussion/Exit Ticket | _________ / 5-10 Min | (Individual / Think-Pair-Share / Pair / Group #____) | |||||
| ____ | Assessment | _________ / 10-40 Min | (Individual / Think-Pair-Share / Pair / Group #____) | |||||
| ____ | Conferencing | _________ Min | (Individual / Pair / Group #____ / Throughout Class Period) | |||||
Harry S. Truman
Harry S Truman (May 8, 1884 - December 26, 1972) was the 33rd (1945 - 1953) President of the United States. Properly, the "S" in Harry S Truman should have no period after it. "S" is not an abbreviation for a middle name; it is his middle name, itself.
Truman served in the United States Senate, representing Missouri, prior to becoming Vice President under Franklin Delano Roosevelt in March 1945. When Roosevelt died, Truman became President, and presided over the events ending World War II. It was Truman who made the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. He also established the Truman Doctrine to help fight communism is Greece and Turkey.
Truman ran for president in his own right in 1948, winning by a narrow margin over Republican challenger Thomas Dewey.
Truman issued the executive order integrating the U.S. Armed Services following World War II.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 - March 28, 1969) was the 34th (1953-1961) President of the United States and an Allied commander in World War II.
His first distinctive work involved exploring the feasibility of crossing the North American continent with modern mechanised equipment, shortly after World War I. Between the wars he served in quasi-political aide de camp roles or similar. During World War II, after his success in army maneuvers in 1941, he was vaulted over 4000 officers to an assignment as chief of operations (1942) and rose from that post to U.S. commander of the European theater of operations in June 1942. He was overall commander for the North African landings in November of that year, and in February 1943, took command of Allied forces in North Africa.
In December 1943, after the successful invasion of Sicily in July, 1943 and Italy in September, he was appointed supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces. His diplomatic skills helped keep the other allies, notably the British, particularly Gen. Bernard Montgomery, on side. Another notable achievement was his skill at combined operations, the difficult art of coordinating land, sea, and air forces toward a single strategic goal, which culminated in the Normandy landings on D-Day in June 1944. After the war, as Army Chief of Staff, he advocated merger of the army, navy, and air force into single combined military force.
When World War II was over, General Eisenhower became head of the military occupation government of Germany as the Allied Control Council. He served as president of Columbia University in 1948-1952.
Eisenhower was a complex, mercurial man. Confident and self-contained in public, he was content with his public image as president as a grinning, patriotic but somewhat inarticulate citizen-politician. In truth, he was a far more calculating man than he let on, with great natural political skills.
President Dwight David Eisenhower (called Ike for short) had a big smile and big ideas. As president, he brought many changes to the government by giving the cabinet more power. He was a military man, but fought no wars in his eight years as president, except for ending one. He resisted entreaties to get involved in Vietnam on the advice of General Matthew Ridgeway who gave him a comprehensive estimate of the massive commitment that would have been required. He signed defense treaties with Korea and Taiwan, and he severed diplomatic relations with Cuba. He forced desegregation in schools, and kept defense spending very low.
For the 1948 election, Harry S Truman secretly told Ike that if he ran for president as a Democrat, Truman would go as his running mate and Eisenhower would get a sure win. Ike refused because he didn't want to be president. For the 1952 election, he was approached again, this time by the Democrats and the Republicans. He still refused, because he did not consider himself a politician. But he changed his mind when "I Like Ike" clubs started popping up all over the country. Eisenhower had never even voted for president before, and had no political affiliation. He ran for the Republicans because he was a strong believer in the two-party system, and there hadn't been a Republican president in over twenty years.
During his campaign Eisenhower never mentioned his main competitor, Adlai Stevenson, by name. Instead he mostly criticized the ways of Truman, who had just been the Democratic president. This strategy worked, and he got 442 electoral votes, compared to Stevenson's 89. What makes this appear especially amazing is that he had never even held public office; however he had had links with the Washington system between the wars in his aide de camp capacity. But he was considered a war hero, and so he had a good image.
He got the votes of both Democrats and Republicans, because he had "middle way politics" meaning he was a moderate Republican, allowing Democrats to also agree with him. This method allowed him to get along well with the mostly Democratic senate, and it made him very popular during his presidency. On the other hand, when his terms were over he was greatly criticized for his politics.
When Arkansas governor Orval Faubus wouldn't desegregate the schools, despite the ruling of the Supreme Court, Eisenhower brought in troops because the Supreme Court ruling was the law and it had to be followed.
Eisenhower is also strongly criticized for not taking a public stand against Senator Joseph McCarthy, although he privately hated him, particularly for McCarthy's attack on his friend and World War II colleague, Secretary of State General George Marshall.
Eisenhower endorsed the United States Interstate highway Act, in 1956. It was the largest American public works program in history, providing a 41,000-mile highway system. Eisenhower had been impressed during the war with the German Autobahns and also recalled his own involvement in a military convoy in 1919 that took 62 days to cross the United States.
Another achievement was a twenty percent increase in family income during his presidency, which he was very proud of. He added a tenth cabinet position -- the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare -- and he gave all of the cabinet members more responsibilities in their areas, letting them take a lot of praise and glory. And he achieved a balanced budget three of the years that he was president.
During his campaign he promised to stop the Korean War, and it was one of the first things he accomplished as president. He flew to Korea and implied in a show of brinkmanship that he would spread the war to China, and bring in nuclear weapons. This was effective and a cease-fire was signed in 1953. He signed defense treaties with Korea and Taiwan, and entered SEATO, which was an alliance with Asian countries to try and stop Communist China. Eisenhower was very concerned about Communism, which may be the reason he did not speak out against McCarthy. He formulated the Eisenhower Doctrine, which helped justify US involvement in Lebanon during his second term. He was also concerned about too much war: in a speech at the end of his second term, he warned against the "military-industrial complex".
There were high tensions in the Middle East, particularly between Israel and Egypt. The British and French sided with Israel, and they attacked Egypt. Then Egypt tried to get the Soviet Union to help, and the Soviet Union threatened that they would. Eisenhower did not want the conflict to turn into the third World War, and he demanded that the United Nations replace the force of England and France. Britain agreed to withdraw, and the crisis was ended. The US did not become involved in any major military conflicts during his administration.
Eisenhower left an interesting legacy. He was very popular during his presidency, but soon after it ended historians rated him as one of the worst presidents in history. This was mainly because of his reluctance to help desegregation and to stop McCarthyism. Also, he made the nuclear arms race much worse, with continuous threats. But in a recent poll of historians, he was rated number eleven. This is because people understand his presidency differently now. They realize that he played up the cabinet's accomplishments and played down his own purposely. He wanted to spread the responsibility around, so that it was possible to get more done. They also remember that he accomplished the Interstate Highway Act and kept defense spending very low.
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the 35th (1961-1963) President of the United States. Kennedy was the youngest person so far to be elected U.S. president (although Theodore Roosevelt was some months younger when he became president upon William McKinley's death), and the first (and as yet only) Roman Catholic president. He beat Richard Nixon, Vice President in the previous administration, in a famous, closely-contested presidential election in 1960. Theodore H. White's 1961 book about that election campaign, The Making of the President 1960, was not only a national best-seller but was also used as a supplementary text in high school and college courses in U. S. government and history.
For various reasons, Kennedy was, during the time he served, perhaps the most popular president in U.S. history. He was a handsome, photogenic man who seemed open and accessible, and his administration marked a notable increase in direct media exposure of the president to the public at large, through television broadcasts from the Oval Office, televised press conferences, and numerous photo spreads in popular magazines. The "charisma" Kennedy and his family projected led to the figurative designation of "Camelot" for his administration. His glamorous wife "Jackie" was as newsworthy as he was, and the way they handled personal tragedies, especially the death of their newborn son Patrick Bouvier Kennedy in August 1963, enhanced their public image.
The house where Kennedy was born in Brookline (in the Boston, Massachusetts, metropolitan area) is now a National Historic Site, open to the public: Kennedy served in the US Navy in World War II, and while he was captain of a PT Boat that was sunk in the Pacific Ocean, he sustained a back injury that plagued him for the remainder of his life, exacerbating a disease the public did not learn of until long after his death. (In May 2002 a National Geographic expedition found what is believed to be the wreckage of that PT-109 in the Solomon Islands: Link to National Geographic News) For his book Profiles in Courage, published in 1956 while he was serving in the US Senate, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Information released after his death leaves no doubt that he had at least one, and probably several extramarital affairs while in office, including liaisons in the White House. Such things were not then considered fit for publication, and in Kennedy's case, they were never publicly discussed.
Kennedy was president for only about 1,000 days. This brief tenure was marked by such notable events as the acceleration of the United States' role in the space race, the beginning of the escalation of the American role in the Vietnam War, the Cuban missile crisis, and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba; these events aggravated the Cold War with the USSR. He appointed his brother Robert F. Kennedy to his Cabinet as Attorney General.
President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald, apprehended for the crime, was himself fatally shot by Jack Ruby before he could be formally charged or brought to trial. Investigations by the FBI and various committees under the auspices of the United States Congress have all concluded that Oswald acted alone, but that official verdict is still highly controversial: The methodology and evidence supporting that conclusion have been strongly disputed by a number of persons, including some who were involved in the investigations.
Kennedy was the most recent Democratic president to push for income tax cuts to improve the economy. He was also the most recent Northern Democrat to win the Presidency.
In November of 2002 long secret medical records were made public, revealing Kennedy's physical ailments were more severe than previously thought. He was in constant pain from fractured vertebrae despite multiple medications, in addition to suffering from severe digestive problems and Addison's disease. Kennedy would get multiple injections of procaine before press conferences in order to appear healthy.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th (1963-1969) President of the United States. He took office after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (JFK). His was a tragic presidency because he brought to the office enormous political skills and high ideals but was brought down by a few glaring flaws.
Johnson had huge ambition and mostly high ideals, combined with a more thorough knowledge of how to get legislation through the U.S. Congress than any president has ever had. He had no hobbies, and other than his own immediate family, no real interests outside politics.
The early years of his presidency were noteworthy for social reforms such as the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act.
He had a visceral distaste for the American war effort in Vietnam, which he had inherited from John Kennedy. But Johnson believed that America could not afford to look weak in the eyes of the world, and so he escalated the war effort continuously from 1965-1968, which resulted in thousands of American deaths and perhaps ten times the number of deaths in Vietnam. Still, America could not control what was happening in Vietnam. In later years, Johnson's presidency was dominated by the Vietnam War. As more and more American soldiers died in Vietnam, Johnson's popularity declined, particularly in the face of student protests ("Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids have you killed today?").
As a result, in March of 1968, LBJ announced he would not seek re-election, and he retired from public life at the end of his term.
Richard M. Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 - April 22, 1994) was the 37th (1969-1974) President of the United States, (Republican). He is the only President to have resigned from office. His resignation came in response to the complex of scandals called the Watergate conspiracy.
He was raised as a evangelical Quaker by his mother, Hannah, who hoped he would become a Quaker missionary. His upbringing is said to have been marked by such conservative Quaker observances as refraining from drinking, dancing, and swearing. However, this is doubtful, as the evangelical sect of Quakerism known as Friends Churches, having been largely organized by itinerant Methodists, bore little resemblence to the traditional 'unprogrammed' Quaker religion, with its silent worship, avoidance of paid clergy, and strict adherence to pacifism. In any case, his father was less religious, focusing on the family business, a store that sold groceries and gasoline. There is much debate as to whether Nixon went through the expected Quaker soul-searching attendent on whether to become a conscientious objector in World War II. During the period of his political career, however, he was not a practicing Quaker.
He attended Whittier College (a Quaker school), graduating second in his class, and Duke University Law School, where he received a full scholarship. He served as a noncombatant officer in the US Navy in World War II; and was elected to Congress in 1946, in a class of freshman war veterans that included his future rival John F. Kennedy, of Massachusetts.
Nixon climbed the ladder swiftly, making his name as an anti-Communist and a rough, no-holds-barred campaigner. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives from California in 1948 where he became a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee and was instrumental in the trial of the ex-government official Alger Hiss for perjury as a part of the accusation that he was a Soviet spy.
Nixon was elected to the Senate in 1950, and in 1952 was elected Vice President on Dwight Eisenhower's ticket when he was only 39 years old.
One notable event of the campaign was Nixon's innovative use of television. Nixon was found to have been financed by a slush fund provided by business supporters. He went on TV and defended himself in an emotional speech in which he stated that his wife Pat did not wear mink, but "a good Republican cloth coat" and stated that although he had been given a cocker spaniel named "Checkers", he was not going to give it back because his daughters loved it. This broadcast resulted in a flood of support that required Eisenhower to keep Nixon on the ticket.
As Vice President, Nixon journeyed to South America and was praised for his courage in facing angry mobs protesting US foreign policy.
Nixon was notable among Vice Presidents in having actually stepped up to run the government three times when Eisenhower was ill: on the occasions of Eisenhower's heart attack on September 24, 1955; his ileitis in June 1956; and his stroke in November 1957.
In 1960, he ran for President on his own but lost to John F. Kennedy. A crucial factor in his loss was the first televised presidential debate. Nixon refused television makeup and was feeling sick, having injured his knee on the way to the studio. He expected to win voters with his foreign-policy expertise, but people only saw a sickly man sweating profusely and wearing a gray suit that blended into the scenery while his rival, Kennedy, looked great. Later research showed that those who had listened to the debate on radio thought Nixon had won, but that the television audience gave the win to Kennedy.
In 1962, he lost a race for Governor of California. In his concession speech, Nixon stated that it was his "last press conference" and that "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more". The defeated mood did not last. He moved to New York City and worked as a high-powered lawyer and in the election of 1968 completed a remarkable political comeback by defeating Hubert H. Humphrey to become the 37th U.S. President.
Nixon appealed to what he claimed was the "silent majority" of moderate Americans who disliked the "hippie" counterculture. Nixon also promised "peace with honor" by his "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War. He proposed the Nixon Doctrine to establish the strategy to turn over the fighting of the war to the Vietnamese. The war ended ignominiously during Nixon's term, but only after four more years of strategic bombing and defeat on the ground, and the withdrawal of US troops, leaving the battle to the South Vietnamese army.
Major initiatives during his presidency:
- Re-establishment of diplomatic relations with China and the Soviet Union as part of Realpolitik, a program of realistic politics. Nixon made famous visits to both nations. Nixon's partnership with Henry Kissinger was an essential part of this success.
- Establishment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
- Establishment of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
- "Vietnamization": the slow withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam.
- Space Shuttle program started.
Nixon was eventually investigated for the instigation and cover-up of the burglary of the Democratic Party offices at the Watergate office complex. His secret recordings of White House conversations were subpoenaed, and revealed details of his complicity in the cover-up. Nixon, however, was named by the grand jury investigating Watergate as "an unindicted co-conspirator". He lost support from his own party as well as the country in the Saturday Night Massacre in which ordered Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor in the Watergate case fired, as well as firing several of his own subordinates who objected to this move. When the House of Representatives voted impeachment, Nixon had run out of options and resigned rather than be convicted. His successor, Gerald R. Ford, issued a pre-emptive pardon, ending the investigations.
In his last years, Nixon managed to rehabiliate himself somewhat and gained respect as an elder statesman in the area of foreign affairs and was consulted by both Democratic and Republican successors to the Presidency. Further tape releases, however, removed all doubt as to Nixon's involvement, both in the Watergate cover-up and the illegal campaign finance and intrusive government surveillance that were at the heart of the scandal.
Nixon died on April 22, 1994, at the age of 81 from complications related to a stroke and was buried beside his wife Pat Nixon in the grounds of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California.
The Nixon Library contains only Nixon's pre and post-Presidential papers as his Presidential papers have been retained as criminal evidence. Nixon's attempts to protect his papers and gain tax advantages from them had been one of the important themes of the Watergate affair. The library is privately funded; other presidential libraries receive support from the US National Archives.
Gerald R. Ford
Gerald R. Ford (born July 14, 1913) (born Leslie King, Jr.) was the 38th (1974-1977) President of the United States (Republican). He was the only President to serve without having been elected President or Vice President. He was a member of the House of Representatives for 24 years from 1949 - 1973, where he served on the Warren Commission, and became Minority Leader of the House. When Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned during Richard Nixon's presidency, Nixon appointed Ford (with the approval of the Senate) to take his place. When Nixon then resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal, Ford assumed the presidency, proclaiming that "our long national nightmare is over". Ford gave Nixon a blanket pardon for the latter's dealings in the Watergate scandal (and anything else he might ever have done). The economy was a great concern during the Ford administration. In response to rising inflation, Ford went before the American public on television in October, 1974 and asked them to "whip inflation now" (WIN); as part of this program, he urged people to wear "WIN" buttons. However, many perceived this as simply a gimmick without offering any effective means of solving the problem
In the aftermath of Watergate, the Democrats scored major gains in both the House and the Senate in the 1974 elections. Ford and Congress battled over legislation, with Ford vetoing scores of Democrat-supported bills.
The economic focus began to change as the country sank into a recession, and in March, 1975, Ford and Congress signed into law income tax rebates to help boost the economy.
Ford also faced a foreign policy crisis with the Mayaguez Incident. In 1975, shortly after the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia, Cambodians seized an American merchant ship, the Mayaguez, in international waters. Ford dispatched Marines to rescue the crew, but the marines landed on the wrong island and met unexpectedly stiff resistance just as, unknown to the US, the Mayaguez sailors were being released. Several American soldiers were killed in the fighting.
It is believed that Ford's pardoning of Nixon, along with the continuing economic problems, may have cost him the election in 1976. His campaign may also have been hampered by a strong challenge that year for the nomination in his party by Ronald Reagan.
Ford was from Michigan and played football for the University of Michigan.
Activities
Lesson Video:
| Harry S. Truman | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
| John F. Kennedy | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Richard M. Nixon | Gerald R. Ford |
Lesson Activity: Presidents of The U.S. - Truman to Ford Questions