Eisenhower's Sputnik Moment: The Race for Space and World Prestige
368
Eisenhower's Sputnik Moment: The Race for Space and World Prestige
368eBook
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Overview
In a critical Cold War moment, Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency suddenly changed when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first satellite. What Ike called "a small ball" became a source of Russian pride and propaganda, and it wounded him politically, as critics charged that he responded sluggishly to the challenge of space exploration. Yet Eisenhower refused to panic after Sputnik—and he did more than just stay calm. He helped to guide the United States into the Space Age, even though Americans have given greater credit to John F. Kennedy for that achievement.
In Eisenhower’s Sputnik Moment, Yanek Mieczkowski examines the early history of America’s space program, reassessing Eisenhower’s leadership. He details how Eisenhower approved breakthrough satellites, supported a new civilian space agency, signed a landmark science education law, and fostered improved relations with scientists. These feats made Eisenhower’s post-Sputnik years not the flop that critics alleged but a time of remarkable progress, even as he endured the setbacks of recession, medical illness, and a humiliating first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite. Eisenhower’s principled stands enabled him to resist intense pressure to boost federal spending, and he instead pursued his priorities—a balanced budget, prosperous economy, and sturdy national defense. Yet Sputnik also altered the world’s power dynamics, sweeping Eisenhower in directions that were new—even alien—to him, and he misjudged the importance of space in the Cold War’s "prestige race." By contrast, Kennedy capitalized on the issue in the 1960 election, and after taking office he urged a manned mission to the moon, leaving Eisenhower to grumble over the young president’s aggressive approach.
Offering a fast-paced account of this Cold War episode, Mieczkowski demonstrates that Eisenhower built an impressive record in space and on earth, all the while offering warnings about America’s stature and strengths that still hold true today.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780801467929 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Cornell University Press |
| Publication date: | 04/15/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 368 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Yanek Mieczkowski is Professor of History at Dowling College. He is the author of Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s and The Routledge Historical Atlas of Presidential Elections.
Table of Contents
IntroductionPart One: Sputnik
1. What Was the Sputnik "Panic"?
2. "The Most Fateful Decision of His Presidency"
3. Eisenhower's Reaction to Sputnik
4. Eisenhower's PrinciplesPart Two: Setbacks
5. Cheerleader-in-Chief
6. "Gloom, Gloom, Gloom"
7. Space Highs, Economic Lows
8. Eisenhower's Rival
9. "Radical Moves"
10. Order from Chaos
11. Defeat and a SCORE
12. Priorities and PrestigePart Three: Space
13. Satellites, Saturn, Spacemen
14. Voyages, Mirages, Images
15. Space, Prestige, and the 1960 Race
16. Eisenhower versus KennedyConclusionAcknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
What People are Saying About This
Yanek Mieczkowski's Eisenhower's Sputnik Moment is a brilliant exposé of the dirty politics of the late 1950s in the attack by the democratic party leader Lyndon Johnson using the military ramifications of space as a bludgeon against the president. The strategy of painting Eisenhower as out of touch with the new realities of space was a key facet of the 1960 presidential election. This book should be read in concert with Walter MacDougal's The Heavens and the Earth. Reading the two together as they have complimentary insights into the politics of the era, allows one to understand better why stalwart democrats like Ronald Reagan changed their political allegiance to Republican. The era of fake news began with the birth of the space age and the hubris that Lyndon Johnson brought to the 1960s is shown in its genesis. Between Mieczkowski and MacDougal, you will never look at the politics of the early space age the same again.
The Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik in 1957 was a shock. Dwight Eisenhower, it turns out, was the nation's shock-absorber-in-chief. Deeply researched and absorbing, Yanek Mieczkowski's new book makes a ringing case for Eisenhower's calm, restrained approach to this alleged calamity, and shows convincingly that the president left the country well ahead of the Soviets in the race for space, and without breaking the federal budget. Eisenhower's Sputnik Moment is a superb contribution to Eisenhower scholarship and the new political history.
Yanek Mieczkowski's new book helps greatly to clear away the deep weeds of political rhetoric and posturing about Sputnik in the early Cold War years, enabling the reader to understand fully the moment, President Eisenhower's response to it, and the consequences of his response. In my documentary on Eisenhower's Cold War leadership (Ike: Building Weapons, Talking Peace), I let Mieczkowski and his excellent research tell the real story behind Sputnik's apparent scientific and political 'triumphs' for the Soviet Union in the race for control of the heavens and superiority in the Cold War.
Beautifully written and meticulously researched, this exquisitely balanced study of Ike's strengths and weaknesses during a national crisis is absolutely essential for understanding the complex, incremental style of leadership that led to monumental achievements by President Eisenhower. In reading this book you will understand why Frank Gehry, the world’s most celebrated living architect, came to be fascinated by Ike’s innovative scientific spirit and designed a memorial to match it.
Yanek Mieczkowski's study of Eisenhower during the Sputnik period is a very wonderful contribution to history. In particular, Eisenhower has not been given enough credit for a lot of things. His leadership and his technical knowledge on how to catch up to the Russians got us to the moon. Most of the credit for this goes to Kennedy, but Eisenhower's Sputnik Moment shows who was really responsible for developing our space program. A lot of Ike's major contributions have just never been credited to him; I want to thank Mieczkowski for his valuable work.
The 'Sputnik Moment' has been invoked in the twenty-first century as shorthand to symbolize how the United States has traditionally been surprised and shocked by external events and how it ultimately recovered and triumphed. It has held symbolic value as the classic story of American history in which a vision of progress dominates, but as Yanek Mieczkowski makes clear, there is so much more to learn. He analyzes this 'moment' as Eisenhower experienced it and finds that the classic narrative is much more about partisan politics and long-term Cold War strategy than about responding to crisis. This most welcome book will become a benchmark in the historiography of the space age.
By probing Eisenhower's response to the Sputnik scare, Yanek Mieczkowski, better than any historian thus far, has shown the general's understanding that his nation’s strength rested on a proper balance of the spiritual, economic, technological, civilian, and military spheres. Drawing on both documentary material and his interviews with key figures, this lively, well-researched, and eminently readable book should be a primer for presidents and policymakers in the twenty-first century.
In Eisenhower's Sputnik Moment, Yanek Mieczkowski... explores the thirty-fourth president’s leadership style through his response to the launch of the Soviet Sputnik. With its focus on presidents, high policy, and personal anecdotes, this is as mainstream as science-flavored U.S. history gets....This is less a book about a foreign policy crisis, per se, and more about the domestic political response to a perceived threat to American interests abroad—more 'the world in the U.S.' than 'U.S. in the world.'.