Truman and Eisenhower

• Truman lacked the personality and charisma to replace Roosevelt after he died in 1945
• In his desperation to prove himself to be tough and decisive he made some errors and faced clashes with Congress
• Rail workers strike in 1946

  1. Unsuccessful demands for pay rises

  2. Union leaders uncooperative with Truman as they did not see him as the leader FDR had been

  3. Truman threatened to conscript the rail workers in what Congress worried was an overreach of presidential power
• Korean war

  1. Truman exceeded his presidential authority with Executive Order 10340 after he seized control of striking steel mills

  2. The press compared Truman to Hitler and the Supreme Court ruled Truman had exceeded his executive authority
• Truman's relationship with Congress

  • Unstable
  • Congress rejected Truman's proposals for extended social and economic reform (essentially extensions of FDR's New Deal)
  • Congress were adamant they did not want another president like Roosevelt who had served 3 terms and had increased the power of the presidency to an unprecedented extent
  • They wanted to regain their influence and were sick of New Deal policies
• Truman clashed with the Republicans in Congress


  • Over his suggestions for further reform, such as housing and healthcare
  • As the republicans were seeking tax-cuts and decreased federal intervention
• Domestically speaking, Truman failed
• 1948 election

  • Initially, it appeared the republicans would be successful
  • However, Truman then embarked on a grassroots campaign travelling 30,000 miles across the nation
  • He gained support as being a man of the people (from smalltown Missouri) and managed to shift the perception that he was a 'do-nothing' president
  • The republican candidate Dewey led an uninspired campaign and Truman won by over 2 million votes
• Groups Truman's policies attracted

  • Farmers in the Midwest and Texas
  • Black voters
• Truman was the first president to present to congress a message on Civil Rights, including the desegregation of the armed forces
• Truman ruined the republicans in challenging the Taft-Hartley act, an extension of the Wagner Act, which limited the conditions under which workers could strike and unions could act
• Truman utilised the radio during his campaign and his relaxed tone was liked by listeners
• The Korean War cost $67 billion and more was needed to help rebuild south Korea after the war
• The Korean War made Truman incredibly unpopular with the general population who held him directly responsible for failures in Korea
• Eisenhower

  • Rose in the ranks of the military and was a leading general during WWII
  • Able to clearly prove his leadership ability as the leader of US forces in Europe
• American Dream

  • Embodied by previous Republican Presidents
  • From a smalltown in Kansas reliant on agriculture
  • Family were staunchly conservative – they believed in self-sufficiency and these ideas were key in his style of leadership
• Eisenhower won over the Republican Old Guard in the 1952 nomination with the militantly anti-communist Nixon as his running mate
• Eisenhower


  • Strong candidate with progressive views for the Cold War era
  • Anti-communist stance was supported in the new Red Scare era
  • Committed to reducing federal intervention and claimed to be against New Deal and Fair Deal policies such as socialised medicine
• Eisenhower was supportive of ending high taxes, government bureaucracy, and socialist medicine
• Eisenhower promised to end the Korean War and won 55% of the vote
• Whilst in his presidency, Eisenhower backtracked on elements of his campaign promises knowing it would be political suicide to dismantle the New Deal and economic suicide to lower taxes
• Nixon was aggressive against Democratic policies whilst Eisenhower remained the dignified president throughout the campaign
• Eisenhower


  Conservative when it came to money, and liberal when it came to people
• Eisenhower's policies

  1. Maintained aspects of FDR's presidency whilst meeting the expectations of the republican voters

  2. Federal intervention was cut to the extent that Eisenhower became known as a do-nothing president

  3. His work was quiet and effective and very much focussed on domestic issues in the foreground

  4. Behind the scenes he was committed to foreign affairs and maintaining peace in the Cold War period
• Defence spending had increased by 300% under Truman – Eisenhower cut this spending by nearly a third, though not to the extent he wanted
• Eisenhower increased social security benefits, increased the minimum wage to $1, introduced federal aid to education, and began an interstate highway programme bigger than anything under the New Deal
• Eisenhower's presidency saw an economic boom through his determination to balance the budget, refusal to lower taxes, and reluctance to overspend on defence
• Eisenhower pushed through the desegregation of schools and the military, sending forces to Little Rock in 1957 to maintain the peace
• Eisenhower aimed to restore the dignity of the president destroyed by Truman
• Eisenhower's relationship with Congress

  1. Built and maintained a good relationship

  2. Built a relationship with Democrats such as LBJ

  3. Used Nixon as the attack dog whilst he remained the dignified president rarely criticising democrats, ready to pull Nixon back if his attacks became too opinionated or biased
• Eisenhower's use of media and press

  1. Used television to advertise his campaign with the first ever election advert

  2. Televised his own version of the fireside chats to maintain his popularity with the people

  3. Used press conferences to confuse overseas countries such as the USSR and China
• Eisenhower used unprecedented power in several occasions, as a direct side effect of the Cold War Congress often agreed to these excess demonstrations of power