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| | As president, Truman was an impulsive and not very bright man. He still holds the record for the lowest approval rating (only 23% of the country approving of his performance) in his last year in office (1952). When there was an ugly strike against a steel company, he impulsively ordered a government takeover of the entire company (the Supreme Court later invalidated his action). When a reporter wrote a negative review about his daughter’s piano recital, Truman said he wanted to punch the reporter in the face for it. When General Douglas MacArthur wanted to be more aggressive in the Korean War, Truman simply fired him. Drop the atom bomb on Japan? Do it, Truman decided quickly, and later said he slept a good night’s sleep the night he decided. Truman’s impulsiveness may remind you of President Andrew Jackson. | | As president, Truman was an impulsive and not very bright man. He still holds the record for the lowest approval rating (only 23% of the country approving of his performance) in his last year in office (1952). When there was an ugly strike against a steel company, he impulsively ordered a government takeover of the entire company (the Supreme Court later invalidated his action). When a reporter wrote a negative review about his daughter’s piano recital, Truman said he wanted to punch the reporter in the face for it. When General Douglas MacArthur wanted to be more aggressive in the Korean War, Truman simply fired him. Drop the atom bomb on Japan? Do it, Truman decided quickly, and later said he slept a good night’s sleep the night he decided. Truman’s impulsiveness may remind you of President Andrew Jackson. |
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| − | In the first election after World War II in 1946, while Truman was president, Republicans won back control of Congress. Truman had been slow in repealing the wage and price controls in place during WW II, and Republicans benefited politically from his mistake. The Republicans then passed an amendment to the Constitution limiting future presidents to two terms in office, so that no future presidents could break Washington’s precedent of serving only two terms. FDR served nearly four terms, and Republicans made sure that would not happen again.
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| − | In 1947, Truman announced what became known as Truman Doctrine to counter the communist threat: “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures.” Assistance shall be “primarily through economic and financial aid.” Also in 1947, a theory of “containment” to keep communism from spreading beyond Russia became popular. But communism continued to spread. China became communist in 1949.
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| − | In the late 1950s, communism spread to a country less than 100 miles from the United States: Cuba. Cuba was the country at the center of the Spanish-American war under President McKinley. We hold a military base there to this day (Guantanamo Bay). But in 1959, Fidel Castro led a communist revolution on the island and subsequently killed his opponents. He has ruled the country as a brutal dictator ever since, imprisoning or killing those who disagree with him.
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| − | In the 1950s and especially just prior to the revolution, many Cubans fled to the United States to escape Castro. Ever since many have also fled Cuba by boat, risking their lives in the ocean between Cuba and Florida. These emigrants from Cuba are some of the most fervent opponents of communism because they see how communism destroyed their own country. Many of them long to return to Cuba to restore freedom to their nation.
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| − | President Eisenhower developed a secret or “covert” plan to free Cuba from its communist dictatorship. When Kennedy became president after the 1960 election, he continued the plan. It consisted of having about a thousand “Cuban exiles” who had been forced to leave Cuba form an army to invade and overthrow Castro. But President Kennedy backed away from the plan at the last minute, and apparently someone in the United States government leaked the planned invasion to Castro. He waited with a much bigger force and captured or killed the Cuban exiles when they invaded at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961. President Kennedy was thereby humiliated in front of the world.
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| − | President Kennedy was himself assassinated two years later in 1963 by a communist sympathizer, Lee Harvey Oswald, who had once tried to become a citizen of the Soviet Union and who was in favor of Castro. An official commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren later concluded that Oswald acted alone, but unanswered questions remain concerning the assassination of President Kennedy. An independent poll conducted in 2003 (by ABC) showed that 68% of Americans believed that the government covered up the real truth about this assassination and that Oswald did not act alone.
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| − | We begin by reviewing the homework returned today (week 9). In the first question, there was an error in the book. In [[World War I]], Italy was initially on the side of Germany, but later joined the war on the side of the [[Allies]] (England, France, Russia and United States). Please review the model answers for this and all the questions.
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| − | What is uniquely American? Jazz. Baseball. Fast food. Nuclear weapons. Country and Western music. Motion pictures. Basketball and football. Two that the class missed identifying: (1) the Mormon religion and (2) national parks. They are also uniquely American. And how about this one: a constitutional form of government?
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| − | Why study history? To avoid repeating mistakes of the past. Also, history is fun. History can give us vision about what we should be doing. It is useful and enriches our experiences. Learning history provides insight into the future. Studying history is one of the best hobbies that one can develop. Much of the Bible is history, and many study it constantly. History can also be inspirational, providing motivation for us to do more after learning how others sacrificed so much to accomplish things.
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| | Let’s turn to a topic in the news: immigration. Immigration was free and unlimited for most of our history. William Penn actually advertised in Germany for immigrants to settle in his colony of Pennsylvania in the late 1600s. There was some hostility to immigrants in the early United States, as illustrated by the “Alien and Sedition Laws” (1798) which authorized the deportation of subversive “aliens” or immigrants who had not yet become citizens. | | Let’s turn to a topic in the news: immigration. Immigration was free and unlimited for most of our history. William Penn actually advertised in Germany for immigrants to settle in his colony of Pennsylvania in the late 1600s. There was some hostility to immigrants in the early United States, as illustrated by the “Alien and Sedition Laws” (1798) which authorized the deportation of subversive “aliens” or immigrants who had not yet become citizens. |