Fifties (124 page)

Thanks to the power of television, Betty Furness, the Lady from Westinghouse, became as well known a national figure as many of the country’s top politicians during the 1952 and 1956 conventions.
CULVER PICTURES

Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson at the 1952 Democratic Convention. Truman had personally offered Stevenson the nomination, but Stevenson, who had no desire to run against Eisenhower, had demurred, angering Truman. Stevenson later gained the nomination on his own.
GEORGE SKADDING/
LIFE
/TIME WARNER, INC.

Dwight Eisenhower’s popularity was immediate and visceral, here at a 1952 appearance in Manhasset, Long Island.
UPI/BETTMANN

The 1952 Republican Convention was a bitter one, as the conservative old guard favoring Bob Taft lost once again. Here the victors celebrate on the podium: Ike and Mamie, and Ike’s choice for Vice-President, Richard Nixon, with his wife, Pat.
GEORGE SKADDING/
LIFE
/TIME WARNER, INC.

Network television was still something relatively new in 1952 but the political process had made the television set a mandatory household item. Here a large crowd gathers outside a New York store to watch the election results in November 1952.
EVE ARNOLD, MAGNUM PHOTOS, INC.

Pat Nixon, never comfortable or happy with her public role, smiles determinedly at a 1956 meeting of Republican women. She dutifully went through the motions of being a public person, but in truth she longed for a simpler life with greater privacy.
CORNELL CAPA, MAGNUM PHOTOS, INC.

John Foster Dulles, U.S. secretary of state, at a news conference in 1956 rejecting suggestions by Russia and India that the United States suspend further H-bomb tests.
UPI/BETTMANN

Allen W. Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, after appearing at an executive session of the Joint Congressional Atomic Energy Committee in 1958.
UPI/BETTMANN

J. Edgar Hoover (right) and his friend Clyde Tolson cheering on the FBI baseball team during a 1955 game. The closeness of their friendship and their constant companionship amused observers aware of Hoover’s intense homophobia.
UPI/BETTMANN

Dwight D. Eisenhower in the official photograph for his presidency.
UPI/BETTMANN

Alfred Kinsey, shown here in 1953, was pilloried by many for trying to bring scientific standards to the study of America’s sexual habits.
UPI/BETTMANN

Gregory Pincus, the driving scientific force behind the invention of the birth-control pill, was wary of attempts to entrap him by those seeking advice on abortions.
UPI/BETTMANN