Dwight D. Eisenhower

=== Civil rights ===

While President Truman's 1948 [[Executive Order 9981]] had begun the process of [[Racial segregation in the United States Armed Forces|desegregating the Armed Forces]], actual implementation had been slow. Eisenhower made clear his stance in his first [[State of the Union address]] in February 1953, saying "I propose to use whatever authority exists in the office of the President to end segregation in the District of Columbia, including the [[Federal government of the United States|Federal Government]], and any segregation in the Armed Forces".<ref>State of the Union Address, February 2, 1953, Public Papers, 1953 pp. 30–31.</ref> When he encountered opposition from the services, he used government control of military spending to force the change through, stating "Wherever Federal Funds are expended&nbsp;..., I do not see how any American can justify&nbsp;... a discrimination in the expenditure of those funds".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9798|title=Eisenhower Press Conference, March 19, 1953|publisher=The American Presidency Project|access-date=October 17, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130131044238/http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9798|archive-date=January 31, 2013|url-status=live}}</ref> When [[Robert B. Anderson]], Eisenhower's first [[Secretary of the Navy]], argued that the [[US Navy]] must recognize the "customs and usages prevailing in certain geographic areas of our country which the Navy had no part in creating," Eisenhower overruled him: "We have not taken and we shall not take a single backward step. There must be no second class citizens in this country."<ref>Byrnes to DDE, August 27, 1953, Eisenhower Library"</ref>

The administration declared [[racial discrimination]] a [[national security]] issue, as Communists around the world used the racial discrimination and history of violence in the US as a point of propaganda attack.<ref>[[Dudziak, Mary L.]] (2002), ''Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy''</ref>

Eisenhower told [[Washington, D.C.]] officials to make the city a model for the rest of the country in integrating black and white public-school children.<ref>{{harvnb|Eisenhower|1963|p=230}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Parmet|1972|pp=438–439}}</ref> He proposed to Congress the [[Civil Rights Act of 1957]] and [[Civil Rights Act of 1960|of 1960]] and signed those acts into law. The 1957 act for the first time established a permanent civil rights office inside the [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]] and a [[Civil Rights Commission]] to hear testimony about abuses of voting rights. Although both acts were much weaker than subsequent civil rights legislation, they constituted the first significant civil rights acts [[Civil Rights Act of 1875|since 1875]].<ref>{{cite journal|first=Michael S.|last=Mayer|title=The Eisenhower Administration and the Civil Rights Act of 1957|journal=Congress & the Presidency|year=1989|volume=16|issue=2|pages=137–154|doi=10.1080/07343468909507929}}</ref>

In 1957 [[Arkansas]] refused to honor a federal court order to integrate their public school system stemming from the ''[[Brown v. Board of Education|Brown]]'' decision. Eisenhower demanded that Arkansas governor [[Orval Faubus]] obey the court order. When Faubus balked, the president placed the [[Arkansas Army National Guard|Arkansas National Guard]] under federal control and sent in the [[101st Airborne Division]]. They protected [[Little Rock Nine|nine black students]]' entry to [[Little Rock Central High School]], an all-white public school, marking the first time since the [[Reconstruction Era]] the federal government had used federal troops in the South to enforce the Constitution.<ref>{{cite book|first=David|last=Nichol|title=A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution|year=2007|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=978-1416541509|url=https://archive.org/details/matterofjusticee00nich}}</ref> [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] wrote to Eisenhower to thank him for his actions, writing "The overwhelming majority of southerners, Negro and white, stand firmly behind your resolute action to restore law and order in [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]]".<ref>to DDE, September 25, 1957, Eisenhower Library</ref>

Eisenhower's administration contributed to the McCarthyist [[Lavender Scare]]<ref>{{cite web|title=An interview with David K. Johnson author of The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government|url=http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/404811in.html|website=press.uchicago.edu|publisher=The University of Chicago|date=2004|access-date=December 16, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171220210821/http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/404811in.html|archive-date=December 20, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> with Eisenhower issuing [[Executive Order 10450]] in 1953.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Adkins|first1=Judith|title='These People Are Frightened to Death' Congressional Investigations and the Lavender Scare|url=https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2016/summer/lavender.html|website=archives.gov|publisher=The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration|quote=Most significantly, the 1950 congressional investigations and the Hoey committee's final report helped institutionalize discrimination by laying the groundwork for President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1953 Executive Order #10450, 'Security Requirements for Government Employment.' That order explicitly added sexuality to the criteria used to determine suitability for federal employment.|access-date=January 15, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180116083139/https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2016/summer/lavender.html|archive-date=January 16, 2018|url-status=live|date=August 15, 2016}}</ref> During Eisenhower's presidency thousands of [[LGBT|lesbian and gay]] applicants were barred from federal employment and over 5,000 federal employees were fired under suspicions of being homosexual.<ref name=documenting>{{cite book|last1=Sears|first1=Brad|last2=Hunter|first2=Nan D.|last3=Mallory|first3=Christy|title=Documenting Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in State Employment|date=September 2009|publisher=The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law|pages=5–3|url=https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/5_History.pdf#page=3|quote=From 1947 to 1961, more than 5,000 allegedly homosexual federal civil servants lost their jobs in the purges for no reason other than sexual orientation, and thousands of applicants were also rejected for federal employment for the same reason. During this period, more than 1,000 men and women were fired for suspected homosexuality from the State Department alone—a far greater number than were dismissed for their membership in the Communist party.|access-date=January 15, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170206215755/http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/5_History.pdf#page=3|archive-date=February 6, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Adkins|first1=Judith|title='These People Are Frightened to Death' Congressional Investigations and the Lavender Scare|url=https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2016/summer/lavender.html|website=archives.gov|publisher=The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration|quote=Historians estimate that somewhere between 5,000 and tens of thousands of gay workers lost their jobs during the Lavender Scare.|access-date=January 15, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180116083139/https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2016/summer/lavender.html|archive-date=January 16, 2018|url-status=live|date=August 15, 2016}}</ref> From 1947 to 1961 the number of firings based on sexual orientation were far greater than those for membership in the [[Communist Party USA|Communist Party]],<ref name=documenting /> and government officials intentionally campaigned to make "homosexual" synonymous with "Communist traitor" such that LGBT people were treated as a national security threat.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Sears|first1=Brad|last2=Hunter|first2=Nan D.|last3=Mallory|first3=Christy|title=Documenting Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in State Employment|date=September 2009|publisher=The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law|pages=5–3|url=https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/5_History.pdf#page=3|quote=Johnson has demonstrated that during this era government officials intentionally engaged in campaigns to associate homosexuality with Communism: 'homosexual' and 'pervert' became synonyms for 'Communist' and 'traitor.'|access-date=January 15, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170206215755/http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/5_History.pdf#page=3|archive-date=February 6, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>