chapter 28 part two we're still dealing with the after the world war ii time frame what some historians have called the beginning of the american century one that we're going to start with is the red scare part 2. in the 1920s after world war 1 we discussed the red scare the fear of communists mostly anarchists in how palmer attorney general palmer dealt with it the effects here we have something different we have the house un-american activities committee this is a permanent committee in the house of representatives and in the 30s they began investigating unamerican activities as they defined an american something that's of note in the 30s communism was all over the place in the depression and in the new deal communists were the only ones talking about civil rights whether they meant it or not based on what communism actually did is unlikely but they talked about it they formed lots of committees to help countries in trouble famine here flood there they'd get a bunch of maybe hollywood people or famous writers to front it but communism was everywhere as they investigated various communist or they presumed communist activities they looked for key phrases and as i just mentioned civil rights was considered a phrase that a communist would use you you talked about civil rights for african-americans or hispanics or suffrage for women you were liable to find yourself thrown under the bus as a communist hugh ack or house on american activities committee really became famous when it turned to investigate movies during the 20s as talkies came around and people could hear what the people the actors actresses were saying some movies did use marxist language proletariat bourgeoisie things of this nature so immediately to the high bound conservatives on the committee this meant that everybody in hollywood was a conservative i mean a communist just hiding and pretending to be an american in the mind of the committee if you were a communist you could not be an american if you were a true blue american you could not be a communist they investigated for several years brought lots of people in to testify famous actors famous actresses most early on refused to cooperate they felt that the committee had no business investigating them that free speech and free association is okay none of the groups they belong to advocated the overthrow of the government so this was really out of bounds for the committee there were about 10 people from hollywood who did this mostly writers some producers the committee wanted them to testify and name names and of course these people would not only one or two even admitted that they had been communist during the 30s but they weren't now didn't make any difference they wanted these communist self-proclaimed communists to name names who was a communist that they didn't know about these people refused to answer those questions were very obnoxious to the committee the committee was obnoxious to them and in the end the committee charged him with contempt of congress hit him with a fine and sent him off to jail for anywhere from six months to a year these are the hollywood ten there's a movie called trombo it was out two or three years ago about one of these hollywood ten people this witch hunt for communists in hollywood as i said didn't find many communists but it scared the bejesus out of the studios many of the studios were owned by jewish people and they were afraid of anti-semitism and if the committee came to hollywood start looking at their studios that they'd end up in jail or embarrassed or whatever so the studios got together and created a list of people that the studio execs thought were too far left this is the infamous blacklist it is illegal but they did it if you're on the list you just did not find work anymore now the really big names that were liberal like humphrey bogart he kept working but if you were a b grade or a c grade actor or actress you found out they just didn't have movies for you to be in anymore writers had scripts rejected makeup artists couldn't get gigs musicians weren't hired because you were on this blacklist and everybody said it didn't exist and everybody knew that it did finally in the late 50s it came to light that it really did nobody's ever proved to be in a communist these people have done nothing wrong but because they joined committees that you know advocated civil rights gee they must be communists the biggest thing really to come out of the house on american activities committee even more so than the hollywood 10 was the alger hiss case alger hiss in world war ii and in the 30s had been well in the 30s on the agricultural department and in the 40s in the state department he had gone with roosevelt to meet stalin a couple times he'd been with truman after roosevelt died he acted as a interpreter as a aide as an expert on the soviet union in 1948 a man named whitaker chambers came forward and said that albert hith had been a communist later he added that his had been a spy now when they get to the point of asking chambers how do you know this chamber said because he had been a communist chambers in the 20s and early 30s was a dedicated communist he had gone sort of off the grid and was working funneling information to the soviet union he claimed that one of these people he dealt with in the 30s and into the 40s was alger hiss he has denied knowing chambers has denied being a communist what happened is as the committee investigated and richard nixon was one of the people they began to believe chambers more than his and they trapped hiss into making statements proving that he was lying they would ask hisk has chambers ever bring to your house and hiss would say no then they'd ask chambers what did his houses look like and chambers would describe the front and through the front door and the front parlor talks about the carpeting he talked about the furniture and then his had to go well you know now that i think about it maybe he did come over once or twice then it came up that his supposedly gave a car to chambers and chambers said so and he said no no no i don't think so then they dig up the records of the car and hiss would have to back down and say well maybe i gave it to him because it was a clunker over and over again his had to backtrack on denying stuff that chambers said what helped seal the deal is documents the chambers had microfilm these documents were possibly typed on his personal typewriter hiss denied that the fbi pulled the files up printed him out compared him to the typewriter that his had in his house and it appeared these documents were typed on his typewriter and given to chambers when he was still a communist to smuggle out to the soviet union so the jury listened to all this and there were two juries first one ended in a hung jury the second one found hills guilty of perjury they did not find him guilty of espionage because it's peace time and their when it happened it was the statute of limitations had run out but they did nail him on perjury he served a five-year sentence but he got out in three and a half for good behavior now after 1950 in the his case 52 56 60 64 68 72 76 80 84 88 92 all those elections the democrats would trot out poor alger hiss and point out that he was railroaded by republicans the republicans didn't care about civil liberties they just wanted to hang people hiss wrote a couple of books claiming up and down and twice on sunday that he was innocent of spying for the soviet union the trouble is after the soviet union fell some ambiguous material has been re released and found and you can argue that hiss was a paid spy you can argue he wasn't it's just not yet a clear but there's a lot of evidence that seems to indicate he did spy for the soviet union the other part of this aftermath is richard nixon's career took off in 46 and 48 he had run for and won a house seat in 50 he ran for the senate out of california beat the incumbent a liberal woman he used a lot of anti-communism in his speeches attacked her being soft on communism and won the senatorship two years later eisenhower made him his vp so richard's next richard nixon's career career really owes a lot to this alger hiss case between the house on american activities committee czechoslovakia all the fears of what's going on in europe communism everywhere we start loyaltyos in this country the federal government you had to put your hand on the bible and swear an oath of allegiance to the country private companies were doing it schools were doing it janitors at schools were having to do this that you were not a communist and had never participated in the committee that you knew was communist now eventually they will be ruled unconstitutional but at this point everybody's got to do them somehow they believe that if the communists i don't know set a loyalty oath they burst into flames and die i don't know but they had loyaltyos enter senator joe mccarthy from wisconsin mccarthy was a nobody and maybe he was looking to make himself a somebody but after alger hiss was convicted of perjury mccarthy made a speech saying that in his hand was a piece of paper with the name of something like 219 communist spies in the state department the problem is no one ever made him give the list he never divulged the list and they're probably he never had a list but he accused people of being sympathizers he said there were many spies in the state department he smeared people's reputation without proof just by claiming you're a communist if you denied it that proved you were a communist i know crazy logic but that's how joe mccarthy was he ended up self-destructing he decided to take on the army for some reason he thought the army was hiding information from him and there was a very famous reporter named edward r murrow who on television and we've got television by now in the early 50s would interview famous people and when he interviewed mccarthy he got mccarthy so confused he was making contradictory statements between the two of these people woke up and realized that mccarthy was a nobody in a nothing and they quit listening to him and he goes away but he leads behind this concept that every kind of witch hunt is now called mccarthyism unless the left does it in which case it's okay but if the conservative dissenters group badly goes after somebody it's called mccarthyism dwight eisenhower was elected in 1952 after his kind of in the middle of joe mccarthy this is probably who people thought they were voting for you notice on his left shoulder five little stars he's a general of the armies that's why he only shows three ribbons when you're general of the armies you have to show every women you've got he won in 52 in a gop landslide the republicans took control of the house and the senate he eisenhower this is ike as president this is who they got was more modest than most gop had hoped they'd really hoped that eisenhower was more conservative and he would begin to dismantle and tear down roosevelt's evil horrible nasty end of the world new deal but eisenhower did not he left most of the programs alone he expanded some of them he inherited the korean war when we left korea macarthur had been fired the americans had pushed back they were partly in north korea partly in south korea we've got a line and no truths the communists kept stalling on whether or not to have a truce until eisenhower one day calmly announced that if the way things were going in the in korea he would have to put all military options on the table when you say that that means nuclear bombs then the defense secretary accidentally let slip they had moved some nuclear bombs from the united states to the philippines clark air base so now the communists are thinking we're about ready to be nuked on this new president they stopped stalin made an agreement and we have a truth and it's been the truth ever since it's not a peace treaty it's an armistice everybody promises to stop shooting at each other eisenhower kept the bracero program you probably don't know of that the bracero program was a program where absolutely hispanic americans basically mexicans that's who we're dealing with for most of the time there are people in mexico mexicans who want to come to the united states and work they were safeguards they were supposed to get some of their money set aside for taxes in mexico but they were immune from harassment they were supposed to set up housing and fair pay which they didn't always get but they came up they worked they got their money their went home they got a benefit we got a benefit although he kept the bracero program and slightly expanded it his administration went after illegal immigrants braceros are not illegal immigrants they went after the illegal immigrants and during his time in office they deported over a million illegal immigrants 1956 he signs what's called the federal aid highway act we know it as the interstate highway system you should also notice that in 1921 there's no red line into florida or across florida in utah there's almost no red line for much of utah and arizona this is the plan that actually general pershing's got his name on this is the pershing map this is the map of what they built and by 92 this is what was built officially this is the end of that program obviously the roads keep going i should also mention that it was partially funded and is partially funded by the federal fuel tax in 2016 one quarter of the miles driven in 2016 the whole year came from people driving on the interstate highway system so a quarter of all the miles driven or on the interstate highway system it sounds really good and big and exciting except if you stop to realize that it's not that exciting at all when we were meeting face-to-face not you and i but students and teachers i drive to work twice a week on the interstate many people who come up and down 15 are driving the interstate la almost every freeway in l.a is an interstate so just understand it's not quite the big thing it is but it is significant that 25 of all motor traffic is on the interstate and part of that is because the interstate highway system as designed in 56 is designed to avoid towns everything before that connected every little town with every little city now we blow right through or right around on the interstate eisenhower also changed the defense strategy eisenhower with the b-52 bombers we had we could reach almost everywhere in russia we had bases in alaska korea japan india pakistan turkey western europe so if the soviets goofed up and war started we could nuke them with our bombs and they could not touch the continental united states they could nuke through their bombers maybe alaska but in those days nobody's really in alaska so eisenhower said we don't need as big a navy marine corps army we have the air force and we have missiles basically he said if russia starts a biological warfare we'll nuke them with our planes they start a chemical warfare we'll nuke them if they start a standard warfare we'll nuke them whatever russia does bad will nuke them this worked for a while because i said the soviets didn't have bombers that could reach the united states and eisenhower is able to cut defense spending a little bit by building up missiles however in 57 that all fell apart part with sputnik sputnik was a satellite the first manmite satellite in orbit it didn't do much it just went overhead going b b beep but that beeping is the message they can put an object in orbit it was only there for a few days but i remember it if you can put a rocket in orbit you have enough thrust to put a missile anywhere in the world so all of a sudden the gap that we had of the pacific which kept us from the russians getting us is gone the russians can now reach the united states from inside russia this changes all of eisenhower's thinking he had a meeting scheduled with the new prime minister or premier of the soviet union nikita khrushchev we had been flying u2 very high speed very high flying planes over the soviet union with the camera taking pictures eisenhower had said we need to stop that the army did army and air force did one more and of course that's the one that has engine problems drops down to lower range they shoot it down and the pilot then is an american soviet says eisenhower are you still doing the flights i believes he'd cancel them and says no we're not and then the soviets tried out gary powers and the whole in potential summit with khrushchev goes bye-bye this is important because khrushchev could have been meeting with ike who was more mature knew how to handle situations instead a year later khrushchev is going to meet with jfk and it's not going to turn out well during eisenhower's time southeast asia stops being french this was southeast asia when eisenhower comes to office you can see four five what one two three five different kinds of colonies laos cambodia tonkin annum and cochin china well up in tonkin and in anime the viet minh minh have been fighting against the french and beginning to win there was a big fight at a french fort at d and b and foo the viet minh 1 french go to this conference in seattle they give up the country they give up all the land they're supposed to be three countries laos cambodia the northern part of vietnam called themselves the democratic republic of vietnam the south just call themselves the state of vietnam when the negotiations were over the south and the united states did not sign the agreement so what was supposed to happen is there was going to be an election the french had fought and lost divide the land into three countries vietnam laos cambodia but wait vietnam is being divided into at the 17th parallel in the north ho chi minh is going to win the viet minh or the strongest group there but down south to make sure that ho chi minh does not win they stuff the ballot boxes and who's not even on the ballot the us ends up supporting the south and now we have four countries south vietnam north vietnam laos and cambodia cuba you know about cuba you know what eisenhower did this occurs in eisenhower's second term castro had proclaimed himself not to continue to be income non-communist he had proclaimed himself to be in favor of democracy and then is a jade guerrero was out there murdering people in the soccer stadium civil rights is beginning in 1947 jackie robinson an african-american ball player breaks the color barrier in major league baseball as a dodger fact baseball recognizes this as such a significant moment that nobody can wear 42 again because that was jackie's number unless you already have it so if you were wearing 42 when they made this announcement a couple years ago then you could keep wearing 42 but otherwise from then on nobody got to wear 42 again because that was jackie robinson's number he endured hell on earth for a year in the baseball because almost every other white player was a bigot it seems like 1954 the brown v board of education case mr brown african-american has a daughter he lives in topeka kansas he wants his daughter to go to the local school it's like two blocks away but kansas for whatever weird reason has segregated schools and so ms brown is supposed to go to the colored school 20 30 blocks away brown sue's he claims this is treating his daughter as if she's a second class citizen and not giving your due process of law the naacp is fighting this case for mr brown and there were two or three others i think there was a total of five the supreme court picked all five up said we'll hear the arguments and basically decided based on what was said in brown v board of education mr brown argued his daughter was being treated like a second class citizen the supreme court agreed now the supreme court at that point had a majority from the south so to please the south the supreme court said that all schools must integrate with all deliberate speed which means whenever the local school districts want to get around to it's fine eisenhower was not real gung-ho on civil rights 1955 the montgomery bus boycott you should all know this one rosa parks 40 year old grandmother 40 each year old grandmother was on her way home one day in the back of the bus the buses in montgomery had a line anything in front of the line was the white section anything behind the line was the colored section the rule in montgomery was if the white part fills up the two bent seats closest to the front have to empty of african americans to go to the back and probably end up standing well this particular day she decided her feet hurt and she wanted to know what her civil rights were so rosa parks did not move the bus driver came back and yelled at her people on the bus shell ladder they went and got a policeman and they arrested this woman for violating bus laws this was the beginning of the civil rights movement as we call it martin luther king jr is involved african-americans boycott the bus system which the people in charge said it's illegal but they didn't take the buses they carpooled in some cases if you're a domestic help you had the woman who you were working for drive to pick you up to keep this all going at one point the city tries to allow carpools to no avail and in 1955 the supreme court hears the case and comes down on the side of integration overturning the plessy v ferguson between brown b board of education brown starter can go to the local school and the montgomery bus boycott we are beginning to see the end the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning of segregation martin luther king jr is the one leading the fight here in montgomery sets up the christian leadership council and we'll hear a lot more about him in the next chapter little rock central high school 1957 i remember seeing this on tv it's a brand new high school and the the little rock school board has decided to integrate this school with seven african-american kids they show up for school everybody screaming at them it's hate the governor governor falben falbas of arkansas states he'll send the national guardian they do to keep these kids out seven or so kids no weapons and they got the national guard with bayonets out to stop them but eisenhower said no he was not big on civil rights he wanted everybody to work it out peacefully among themselves but he was not going to let a racist governor like falbas disregard a supreme court order so on a day a couple days in the national guard is there to keep the students out that night that day actually eisenhower signs an order nationalizing the arkansas national guard which means they're now in the army he brings in some paratroopers from the 101st and 101st and 82nd airborne with that to stiffen them up the national guard now us soldiers start escorting the kids into the school and the kids will be there for a year the trouble is is that down south when they started doing that they started making private schools air quotes around privates for the families who don't want their kids to go to integrated schools the 1960 election um is a little unique it's one of these turning points because we now have younger men seeking the presidency they're both in their 40s not 60s 40s there isn't much difference between in foreign policy that kennedy has become famous because of this campaign kennedy is a liberal he said but he did not introduce any liberal bills he did not introduce anything of significance most people have never heard of him but his father joseph kennedy who made it supposedly a bunch of money during prohibition he's got money to spend and he spends millions of it jack kennedy is catholic has to fight that nixon of course is famous for the whittaker chambers winning the senate ship winning the vice presidency there is not much difference as i said on foreign policy both men were claiming to be strong anti-communist strong cold war warriors nixon would actually be more so than kennedy the united states had put an exhibition on in moscow under eisenhower where they put up rooms from a typical three-bedroom middle class home khrushchev came to see it nixon was there and khrushchev denied that this was middle class and nixon gets in his face and argues yes it is and for about a few minutes they go back and forth and this is nixon again and people go oh look nick he's out there fighting for us not much difference on domestic policy during the election martin luther king gets arrested and kennedy calls and talks to mrs king now he didn't do much but he called and support and so king will now endorse and help elect robert excuse me john f kennedy for the presidency the real thing of the debate i mean of the election is the debate kennedy is cool casual nixon is intense it did not come over well on tv he had a five o'clock shadow the makeup he used didn't cover it up very well didn't cover up his sweat kennedy's just sitting there looking very cool and collected and everybody pretty much who watched the debate said kennedy won what's interesting is if you listen to the debate with your eyes closed or if you couldn't see them because in 1916 not everybody had a tv or access to one so they gathered people together various newspapers and radios they gathered them together in groups 15 to 20 in front of a radio and had them listen to the debate those who watched the debate said kennedy one those who listened to the debate said nixon won the election is so close that if one person in each precinct changed their vote from kennedy to nixon kennedy would not have won the popular vote i'm not sure if he'd won the election however when the dust settled nixon's people came to nixon and said wait a minute we have evidence that chicago illinois voted a lot more tombstones than normal to make sure that illinois went for kennedy south texas there are documented cases of lyndon john lyndon johnson who is vp nominee senator from texas it's got men he knows and hired out collecting ballot boxes which show up unsealed and voting heavily johnson kennedy this is area that eisenhower carried and nixon should have carried so with this two states graft nixon says what does this do and his aides say if we get this appeal when they win and they recount and do it legit these states will come to you and give you enough popular votes to be president nixon said can you guarantee this and his aides said well no we can't and then nixon said and this is the part needs to be remembered about nixon nixon said no we're not suing unlike al gore nixon took the higher road and did not challenge the election or the electoral vote total because he said no president should start a presidency with a scandal like that and that ends chapter 28.