AHC: Eisenhower becomes THE Civil Rights President, plus wages Cold War mainly in economic realm.

[GeographyDude]

There was at least several Dwight Eisenhowers. There was the “brothers under the skin” Dwight. And then there was the casual-racist-of-his-time Dwight. Let’s say the cold war itself finally tilts it for him.

We’re not going to make it harder on ourselves, he decides.

The nations of Latin America, Africa, and Asia — especially the newly independent nations — need to see us making visible progress on race. The 1957 Civil Rights Act comes earlier and has real teeth to it. And in general, Dwight moves at a good medium pace on racial equality and things actually get done.

In addition, Dwight emphasizes economic development and trade deals, without too many strings attached. We don’t give away the store, but we have faith that our system will eventually win people over.

And perhaps similar to land reform in South Korea, we’re not scared off by mixed economic systems.

 

[Red_Neptune]

1. If Eisenhower passes a comprehensive civil rights act, then we might see civil rights come a few years earlier. But I don't see the problems of the late 60s being butterflied away, nor do I see African-Americans voting for Republicans -- remember, African-Americans were voting for the Democrats since the New Deal and Northern Democrats were by-and-by supportive of civil rights.

2. Why would Eisenhower take a "soft" tone in the Cold War? This was the same guy who appointed John Dulles as Secretary of State, and the entire reason he ran was the fear that the potential winner of the election of 1952 (Robert A. Taft) would be too soft on the Soviets. Eisenhower was a Cold Warrior through-and-through.

3. Eisenhower setting the stage for a mixed economy? This was the guy whose Cabinet consisted of "nine billionaires and a plumber," with his top advisors being Charles E. Wilson (CEO of General Motors), Robert Cutler (a corporate lawyer), Joseph Dodge (president of the National Bank of Detroit), Neil H. McElroy (president of P&G), and George Humphrey (a major corporate leader).

If you want to set the stage for a mixed economy -- perhaps something left of Rooseveltian social liberalism, and similar to social democracy -- the best way is to either dismember the Conservative Coalition in Congress in the 1948 midterms or extend the Johnson Presidency ideally by preventing Vietnam. If the focus on the Great Society (which was very popular), he'll be able to win reelection in 1968; it was Vietnam, which exerted pressure on the Johnson administration from both the anti-war and pro-war movement, that brought about an end to Democratic domination of the White House.

 

[raharris1973]

I don't think @GeographyDude was talking about a mixed economic system for America, but tolerating mixed systems among allies. Which we were, if we were satisfied they were anticommunist.

 

[Veiovis]

This has the same stumbling block as a lot of similar TL: It posist that a US president simply gets convinced of the value of civil rights in a pragmatic sense, and thats the reason he pushed them through earlier. That completly ignores the insane, nation-threatening amount of pushback on the issue. You need a solid foundation of activly believing in the moral right of extensive civil rights to preserve that momentum in a time before your nation is ready to come apart at the seams like in the late 60s.

 

[GeographyDude]

2. Why would Eisenhower take a "soft" tone in the Cold War? This was the same guy who appointed John Dulles as Secretary of State, and the entire reason he ran was the fear that the potential winner of the election of 1952 (Robert A. Taft) would be too soft on the Soviets. Eisenhower was a Cold Warrior through-and-through.

I am emphatically not saying Dwight becomes a big softy.

Now, on the moderate side, he did not rush into a space race with the Soviets. And he took the attitude that China probably doesn’t want a land war either.

Yes, he did support covert military intervention in Iran and Guatemala, and toward the end of his tenure gearing up for Cuba. And I’m sure that there were other examples, including a couple that may not have really come to light even today.

What I’m saying is that Eisenhower has a morning dream, or while saving, or while playing a round of golf, to that effect . .

Well, Shit, if we don’t deliver the goods in the economic realm.

Meaning trade that really is a two way street (we can’t just let our multinationals run wild), and some of that economic development we’re always talking about. For example, we should be handling beating the Soviets on the number of foreign students studying in American universities.

And Dwight may have also come to the conclusion that covert actions will most likely come to light, and probably sooner rather than later, which did in fact happen.

 

[GeographyDude]

I don't think @GeographyDude was talking about a mixed economic system for America, but tolerating mixed systems among allies. Which we were, if we were satisfied they were anticommunist.

Tigers, Tiger Cubs and Economic Growth

Economic growth of East Asia can be seen by dividing countries into three distinct groups.

www.stlouisfed.org

This is one of the greatest success stories, quite literally, in the history of the human race.

But we bailed.

We moved away from this with Africa and Latin America. Either our own ideologues gained greater sway and/or vested interests, meaning large American corporations.

And the last part you brought up, I think we might both view that as a trap. If we want other governments to be actively anti-communist, and the more the mixed economy, the more we want it, I think it then becomes a case of “Your phobias become foreign policy,” and something akin to the Middle Ages in which we’re afraid some people are “soft” on the dangers of Protestantism, that kind of thing.

The alternate is the Ronald Reagan viewpoint (per biographer Thomas C. Reed) that, Who would want to live under such a system? And that in the long game, people will move away from communism on their own, as China has largely done, and seemingly without needing a crisis to spur it on.

 

[Bob in Pittsburgh]

I do not see Eisenhower adopting a softer approach to the Cold War primarily as an economic effort. He reached an armistice in Korea by threatening to go nuclear. He blocked Churchill's attempt to negotiate with Stalin's successors in 1954. He had the largest peacetime defense budget calculated as a % of GDP. As to Civil Rights under Ike the Republicans had a good record. The vote on the 1957 Act in the House was 286 in favor (167 Republicans 119 Democrats) against 126 (19 Republicans 107 Democrats). The Senate vote was 72 in favor (43 Republicans 29 Democrats) 18 against (18 Democrats) Despite this the Republicans and Ike never got much traction on civil rights,

 

[raharris1973]

Tigers, Tiger Cubs and Economic Growth

Economic growth of East Asia can be seen by dividing countries into three distinct groups.

www.stlouisfed.org

This is one of the greatest success stories, quite literally, in the history of the human race.

But we bailed.

We moved away from this with Africa and Latin America. Either our own ideologues gained greater sway and/or vested interests, meaning large American corporations.

And the last part you brought up, I think we might both view that as a trap. If we want other governments to be actively anti-communist, and the more the mixed economy, the more we want it, I think it then becomes a case of “Your phobias become foreign policy,” and something akin to the Middle Ages in which we’re afraid some people are “soft” on the dangers of Protestantism, that kind of thing.

The alternate is the Ronald Reagan viewpoint (per biographer Thomas C. Reed) that, Who would want to live under such a system? And that in the long game, people will move away from communism on their own, as China has largely done, and seemingly without needing a crisis to spur it on.

The thing about the Asian Tigers is they may have been "mixed economies" but they weren't regarded in America as in any way "socialist". The American right, if anything perceived East Asian labor as more disciplined and less strike prone, and the American right assumed there was less welfare spending (and for many decades was probably correct) and regarded the strong family as the social safety net in East Asia, not the state, and certainly not a downwardly redistributive one. Even if the social outcomes resulted in more clustering within the middle class and fewer extremes of wealth and poverty, it was by means acceptable to conser vatives. Not all egalitarian outcomes stem from a leftward orientation, deep red and conservative Utah is probably the most middle class state in the union.

Let's consider your graphed countries 1-by-1: Japan - a center-right 1 party state with the Socialists in perpetual opposition. Albeit after an early period in which landlord concentrations were broken up. Hong Kong - a British colony and center of go-go, barely regulated capitalism. Singapore - governed by a center-right party since 1959. Taiwan - long a right-wing party dictatorship whose forays into economic statism were forgiven by its American admirers, and who happened to not have a powerbase among provincial landlords and wanted to undermine and dispossess them - became democratic in the 90s. South Korea - burning the faces off of student dissidents as recently as 1980, and a military dictatorship till 1987. They apparently did land reform. I know little about it, like when they did it and how extensive it was, in comparison with the Japan and Taiwan reforms which were complete by the early 1950s and associated with American advisor Wolf Ladejinsky. I also had the impression that South Korean land reform had basically made no headway by the time of the Korean War or during the Rhee regime.

China moved away from Communism after several crises, largely self-inflicted, though also while embargoed or sanctioned by much of the outside world.

 

[GeographyDude]

This has the same stumbling block as a lot of similar TL: It posist that a US president simply gets convinced of the value of civil rights in a pragmatic sense, and thats the reason he pushed them through earlier. That completly ignores the insane, nation-threatening amount of pushback on the issue. You need a solid foundation of activly believing in the moral right of extensive civil rights to preserve that momentum in a time before your nation is ready to come apart at the seams like in the late 60s.

I’ll happily accept an earlier, more effective Civil Rights movement. Maybe just slightly more African-American replacement soldiers the tail end of WWII, serving on a desegregated basis. This happened, but just give me slightly more.

The African-American soldiers themselves might be slightly more likely to get involved in activism and sustain this activism. And a certain percentage of white soldiers who served alongside them might be more willing to speak up for civil rights with friends and family members.

As far as Ike’s motivation, people can begin something for very pragmatic reasons, and then end up believing in it, right?

 

[xsampa]

Tigers, Tiger Cubs and Economic Growth

Economic growth of East Asia can be seen by dividing countries into three distinct groups.

www.stlouisfed.org

This is one of the greatest success stories, quite literally, in the history of the human race.

But we bailed.

We moved away from this with Africa and Latin America. Either our own ideologues gained greater sway and/or vested interests, meaning large American corporations.

And the last part you brought up, I think we might both view that as a trap. If we want other governments to be actively anti-communist, and the more the mixed economy, the more we want it, I think it then becomes a case of “Your phobias become foreign policy,” and something akin to the Middle Ages in which we’re afraid some people are “soft” on the dangers of Protestantism, that kind of thing.

The alternate is the Ronald Reagan viewpoint (per biographer Thomas C. Reed) that, Who would want to live under such a system? And that in the long game, people will move away from communism on their own, as China has largely done, and seemingly without needing a crisis to spur it on.

Did racial reasons count for refusing to allow Latin America and Africa to go down the same path?

 

[GeographyDude]

. . . The American right, if anything perceived East Asian labor as more disciplined and less strike prone, . . .

Ah, Asians viewed as the “good” minority group, even though they certainly aren’t a minority in their own countries.

I’d say this “good” label is as much a trap as anything else. In fact, there’s a dynamic in some dysfunctional families in which one kid good at school or sports is considered the “savior” of the family. But then if this kid goes through an entirely normal teenage rebellion or simply slumps in the field of his or her expertise, then it’s like a coin being turned over and the kid is suddenly viewed as a bum or no good. It’s a very much swinging from one side to the other, on the part of the people believing in the damn labels.

 

[GeographyDude]

Did racial reasons count for refusing to allow Latin America and Africa to go down the same path?

Undoubtedly.

And the darker a person’s skin tone, the worse the prejudice. And I wish our world was just better and more accepting.

 

[raharris1973]

Ah, Asians viewed as the “good” minority group, even though they certainly aren’t a minority in their own countries.

This is conflating two different things, admiration expressed for a domestic 'model minority', a notable feature of 1980s and 1990s conservatism over other eras, and and an admiration for Japanese or Korean society abroad for being more 'disciplined', 'traditional', 'family-friendly' and less 'soft'.

Did racial reasons count for refusing to allow Latin America and Africa to go down the same path?

The theory doesn't really hold together so neatly.

1st of all, during and after WWII and the Chinese Civil War, the American right-wing had a hard-on for KMT China and hatred for Red China, so loved Anticommunist Asians and hated Communist Asians, and they treated US critics of Asian anti-communist regimes as people ready to sell those countries out to Communists by degrees. So, the American right-wing was for giving KMT China, on the mainland and Taiwan, wide latitude, because they had a common political enemy in American liberals who criticized the KMT regime and were their domestic political competitors. Conservative American men were about as likely to have 'yellow fever' to use an indelicate term and have erotic fascination with East Asian women as any other American men of any other political persuasion.

From the 40s through the 70s however, Anti-East Asian stereotypes in American culture were probably still cruder and crueler than anti-hispanic ones.

Also, being on the rim of of communism, East Asian states like Japan, South Korea, that we did not want to lose to the other side, had bargaining leverage countries in the southern continents didn't have, irrespective of the colors of their inhabitants. They occupied strategic locations we needed as forwarded bases and we didn't want their bases and industries to go communist, so the US tolerated their one-way protectionism. We accepted them protecting their markets while opening our own.

African states and Latin American states were not as high priority, so we didn't have the same incentive to keep our markets open to them without complete reciprocity.

And it's not like Latin American countries didn't try industrialization and import-substitution industrialization. I'm not sure how decisive US "permission" was for their economic fate. The East Asians found an export niche, but not everybody can, the Argentines and Brazilians didn't.

Hong Kong's case is different - its outcome are a result of whatever Britain permitted or did not permit. So do we have a comparable case study of a British territory of a different colored population under basically the same administrative rules? I don't know?

Singapore had it's time with Britain and independent, but its first post independence leader, for what is worth, was South Asian-looking, not East Asian. It's a multi-colored country.

There's a whole other interesting literature also about why at least since the end of the Vietnam War, Western Asia-the Middle East has been so much more conflict focused and not positively developing while East Asia has been more peaceful and positively developing. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27644483?seq=1

 

[GeographyDude]

. . The East Asians found an export niche, but not everybody can, the Argentines and Brazilians didn't. .

I think it’s one of these situations in which multiple factors are needed for success.

In a similar fashion, a computer software company needs multiple factors — product itself, service, price, initial popularity, being compatible with current systems — all of which have to be at least good enough.

 

[GeographyDude]

VOLUNTEERS FOR COMBAT INFANTRY REPLACEMENT
learning how to assemble a BAR.​

“ . . By February, 4,562 Negro troops had volunteered, many of the noncommissioned officers among them taking reductions in rank to do so. The first 2,800 reported to the Ground Force Reinforcement Command in January and early February [ 1945], after which the flow of volunteers was stopped. . ”

Chapter XXII: Volunteer Infantry Replacements

Feb. ‘45 is very late for the European theater of WWII. And of course, U.S. units had been suffering substantial casualties even since D-Day on June 6, 1944.

If only little earlier . . .

And Eisenhower had been one of the generals who matter-of-factly approved the idea of using replacement soldiers on a desegregated basis. This potentially could have had a transformative effect when both white and black soldiers returned home, and could have made for an easier, better, and earlier civil rights movement.

 

[raharris1973]

Hey @GeographyDude I like your attempts at what-ifs to improve the moral arc of the universe, and I get why in this case you picked transferring competition for the third world from the dirty tricks and military realm to the economic showcase realm would be a nicer way to do things, but actually, one thing that might do the most to enable it could have been if Eisenhower was more open to Churchill's ideas about negotiating a solution to the European Cold War and a much more dramatic relaxation of Cold War tensions and alliances in Europe first. That was probably in closer reach before playing mr. nice guy in the third world, even though average American center-left person feels more guilty about the cold war in the third world than Europe.

 

[Deleted member 140587]

Hey @GeographyDude I like your attempts at what-ifs to improve the moral arc of the universe, and I get why in this case you picked transferring competition for the third world from the dirty tricks and military realm to the economic showcase realm would be a nicer way to do things, but actually, one thing that might do the most to enable it could have been if Eisenhower was more open to Churchill's ideas about negotiating a solution to the European Cold War and a much more dramatic relaxation of Cold War tensions and alliances in Europe first. That was probably in closer reach before playing mr. nice guy in the third world, even though average American center-left person feels more guilty about the cold war in the third world than Europe.

Indeed. Perhaps if Eisenhower were more receptive to Churchill's attempts of a "Parley at the Summit" then some of the early Cold War tensions could've been resolved without resorting to the backhanded, CIA-sponsored coups in Egypt, Guatemala, and the Congo.

Of course, both movement on Civil Rights and alleviation of Cold War tensions would probably have been much easier achieved if Harry Truman managed to snatch a third term. In fact, Churchill himself was very uneasy at the prospect of a Republican president and by July of 1953, confided to aides that he was deeply regretting that Truman and the Democrats weren't returned at the ballot. He even went so far as to call Eisenhower "both weak and stupid" and thought that Ike didn't fully comprehend the threat of nuclear war.

 

[GeographyDude]

. . . if Eisenhower was more open to Churchill's ideas about negotiating a solution to the European Cold War and a much more dramatic relaxation of Cold War tensions and alliances in Europe first. . .

Indeed. Perhaps if Eisenhower were more receptive to Churchill's attempts of a "Parley at the Summit" then some of the early Cold War tensions could've been resolved . . .

I’ve always thought Churchill was more of a hardcore cold warrior than many American leaders were.

For example, he delayed the war effort for several weeks in order to start fighting against Greek partisans. And even though this was Dec. ‘44, it wasn’t a done deal yet, as the Battle of the Bulge showed. And plus, there was always an outside chance that the Nazis would develop a nuclear bomb.

 

[GeographyDude]

Transcript of meeting of Fahy Committee with President Truman | Harry S. Truman

www.trumanlibrary.gov

This is Pres. Truman meeting with the Fahy Committee on Jan. 12, 1949. This committee was tasked with carrying out desegregation.

And notice that here the branches are competing as to who can do the better job!

But still, a lot of inside baseball stuff. Desegregation was very much a process.

———-

Point being, Dwight could have kept the momentum going.

 

[raharris1973]

I’ve always thought Churchill was more of a hardcore cold warrior than many American leaders were.

For example, he delayed the war effort for several weeks in order to start fighting against Greek partisans. And even though this was Dec. ‘44, it wasn’t a done deal yet, as the Battle of the Bulge showed. And plus, there was always an outside chance that the Nazis would develop a nuclear bomb.

Churchill was precocious and early about everything.

1914 - he was an early mobilizer
1918 - he was an early anti-Boleshevik
1935 - he was an early rearmament against Germany guy
1938 -41 he was an early coalition-ize with the Soviets guy
1944-46 - early Cold War
1950s premier-ship - an early Detente-er, and early warn-er of "hey Vietnam and Dienbienphu ain't for us"