Introduction
The history is the science, which reminds Gorgon: everyone and everything petrifies under its sight, and all the colors disappear. There is no more yellow, green, black, white or red. There are only marmoreal-red for the leaders and granitic-grey for the executives of their will. The history of the United States of America during the twentieth is quite an interesting period: it is featured by the appearing of the US on the global arena, the great changes challenges and achievements in the domestic policy, and the rivalries on the global arena.
Domestic policy
The president with the greatest achievements in domestic policy is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It can be confirmed by the only fact, that he is the only president, who has been elected for four times. Franklin Roosevelt was elected on a “stop the depression” campaign. He guaranteed the people a “New Deal.” He stated that the key anxiety of the American government was to confirm that any American did not starve. The Democratic stand promised a revoke of prevention, a descending amendment of the tariff, aid to planters, and stock exchange improvements to avert fraud.
Roosevelt’s first action as president was to deal with the state’s banking disaster. Since the start of the depression, 20% of all banks had been obliged to close. As a result, around 15% of people’s life-saves had been vanished. By the beginning of 1933 the American citizens were starting to lose belief in their banking structure and lots of people were trying to return their capitals and started storing it at home. The day after taking office as president, Roosevelt made all banks close. He then required Congress to pass legislation which would assure that investors would not lose their savings if there was another economic crisis.
His trace on civil rights has been the focus of much disagreement. Roosevelt required the maintenance of Southern Democrats for his New Deal plans, and locating an antagonistic spot on civil rights could have intimidated his capability to pass his highest precedence plans.
One of his greatest achievements in social sphere is the solution of the race matter, especially in the context of Afro-American discrimination. Roosevelt’s approaches to race were examined by the matter of Black service in the armed forces. The Democratic Party at this time was controlled by Southerners who were resisted to any allowance to demands for racial parity. During the New Deal period, there had been a sequence of divergences over whether African-Americans should be segregated in the different new government assistances and programs.
In June 1941 Roosevelt published Executive Order 8802, which confirmed the Fair Employment Practices Committee. It was the most significant federal shift in maintenance of the rights of African Americans among Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The President’s order confirmed that the federal government would not employ any person on the conclusion on their race, color, religion, or national origin. The FEPC implemented the arrangement to prohibit prejudiced hiring within the federal administration and in corporations that got federal agreements. Millions of blacks and women got better jobs and better salaries as a result. The war brought the matters of the race to the vanguard. The Army and Navy had been divided since the Civil War period. But by 1940 the African-American choice had largely changed from Republican to Democrat, and African-American heads like Walter White of the NAACP and T. Arnold Hill of the Urban League had turned to be distinguished as fragment of the Roosevelt alliance. In June 1941, at the influence of A. Philip Randolph, the leading African-American trade unionist, Roosevelt concluded an administrative order stating the Fair Employment Practice Commission and prohibiting discrimination by any state institution, entailing the armed forces. In reality the services, mainly the Navy and the Marines, found methods to avoid this order — the Marine Corps stayed all-white until 1943.
One of the key matters that reasoned in the Depression was the dilemma of the farmer. There was huge overproduction of grain, and taking into account the fact that Europe stayed peaceful, little grain was exported. Thus the charges fell and the planters were left with little profits. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 paid farmers to cultivate their fields through. The charges for this came from an individual tax inflicted on all agricultural business operations. With the assistance of harsh famines, the agricultural sector worked very well in reducing the production extents. However, in 1935 it was announced unconstitutional by the U.S. v. Butler conclusion on the basis that the kind of tax charged on the customers was a key tax and was thus illegal.
Foreign policy
As for the matters of foreign policy, it should be stated, that John F. Kennedy, for the contribution to the peaceful solution of the Caribbean crisis, and the achievement of tension lessening during the Cold War, may be regarded as the president, who made a lot not only for the USA, but also for the issues of the global peace.
When Kennedy went against his consultants on foreign policy, it was as he declined the notion that the US had a right to regulate economic and political event sin other states. In quite spiky contrast to his tough military position against the authoritative Soviet Union, Kennedy was hesitant to send military force against lesser and weaker states. This unwillingness was totally reliable with his statements in 1959 where he rejected “the spectacle of imperialism.”
Kennedy’s foreign policy tactics was grounded on Flexible Response, a term invented by General Maxwell Taylor. Taylor, who served Kennedy as a consultant and later as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), classified Flexible Response as “a capacity to respond across the whole range of probable challenge, for handling with anything from total atomic war to penetrations and hostilities such as pressure Laos and Berlin.” Within the theoretical framework of Flexible Response, nuclear bludgeons acted a smaller role than they did under Kennedy’s forerunner, Dwight Eisenhower.
Nuclear weapons acted an even lesser role in other territories of U.S. unfamiliar relations. There is no confirmation the United States intimidated or judged their application in the Congo crisis, in Africa in universal, or in other regions of the world. Yet nuclear power did act a political function in U.S. overseas contacts. In Kennedy’s attempts “to join up the northern part of the Free World more intimately,” he regarded nuclear weapons as practical instruments for hardening the Atlantic coalition. This was most obvious in U.S. efforts to state the Multilateral Force (MLF), but also in the 1961 conclusion to continue with operation of the outdated Jupiter missiles in Turkey in order to conciliate the Turks and to evade appearing form the positions of weak to the Soviets. Nuclear weapons could also provide political crevices in contacts with other states, most notably Great Britain, Japan, and Canada.
Still, concern emerges to have been the most prominent features of Kennedy’s nuclear policy. The confirmation now available offering that Kennedy’s dependence on non-nuclear advantages outshined his dependence on nuclear weapons, just as his nuclear command concealed any nuclear irresponsibility. His concern is not surprising in light of the state safety strategy he chased and the personal apprehensions he harbored about nuclear weapons. It is mentionable in regard of the alarm with which Washington and most Americans saw the Soviet threat; the incidence and intensity of the global crises Kennedy challenged; and the generally acknowledged ascendancy of the U.S. nuclear magazine. Given this mix of threat, crisis, and tactical dominance, the restricted role nuclear weapons acted in Kennedy’s foreign policy is striking.
Conclusion
One of the key rules of history goes, that in order not to get lost in the shadow of the predecessor, the leader is obliged to overcome him / her, and only this way both will be remembered. Another way is to become the best in the related sphere, as for instance, Franklin D. Roosevelt did not have enough time and efforts for the foreign policy, while he was solving the issues of social policy, an restoring of economics. John F. Kennedy, on the background of relatively stable social situation was more anxious with the matters of national security.
References
Black, C. Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom PublicAffairs publisher, 2005.
Divine, R.A. America Past and Present Pearson Longman publisher, 2004.
McNamara, R. Memorandum for the Secretaries of the Military Departments, , President’s Office Files Departments and Agencies, Defense, 189-190. 1961.
Oates, S., Portrait of America: Volume I Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.
Talbot, D., The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years Free Press; 1st Free Press Hardcover Ed edition 2007.