America Dreaming Read online

  GO, CAT, GO!

  The Beats took it even further. Beats were counterculture mavens who railed against conformity by celebrating the underside of America, the hidden America. That meant not only black culture but also street culture, drug culture, and whatever else was decidedly not the American Dream. The Beats venerated whatever was taboo, and in a conservative society like America in the ’50s, there were many taboos. A 1954 article in the New York Times Magazine titled “This Is the Beat Generation” by Clellon Holmes quoted writer Jack Kerouac as saying, “You know, this is really a beat generation.” Holmes went on to explain what that meant:

  The origins of the word “beat” are obscure, but the meaning is only too clear to most Americans. More than mere weariness, it implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw. It involves a sort of nakedness of mind, and, ultimately, of soul, a feeling of being reduced to a bedrock of consciousness. In short, it means being undramatically pushed up against the wall of oneself. A man is beat whenever he goes for broke and wagers the sum of his resources on a single number; and the young generation has done that continually from their youth.

  “When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It’s only after a sort of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own.”

  —Jackson Pollock, Possibilities I, Winter 1947–48

  WHAT’S IT A PICTURE OF?

  During the ’50s, visual artists rebelled against conformity by questioning the very assumptions of what a painting represents. This new movement was called abstract expressionism. Rather than a painting being merely a picture of the concrete world—however distorted or interpreted—painters began to explore the basic elements of painting as ends in themselves. These works of art expressed the painters’ vision purely through the use of form and color. Now considered to be the first American artistic movement of worldwide importance, the abstract expressionists can be divided into two groups: action painting (typified by artists such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Philip Guston), which put the focus on the physical action involved in painting, and color field painting (practiced by Mark Rothko and Kenneth Noland, among others), which was primarily concerned with exploring the effects of pure color on a canvas.

  Clearly, the “beat” attitude did not promote the kind of optimism and abundance that the dominant culture reveled in. Kerouac was able to capture this “beat” sensibility, its aspirations and soul, in his explosive novel On the Road. The novel wore the clothes of fiction but was really a nonfiction account of Kerouac’s own experiences. In direct opposition to the “company man” mentality, On the Road celebrated the individual in all his eccentricities and shortcomings. Unlike the careful, methodical, hardworking, and conscientious approach the ’50s morality promoted, Kerouac wrote the novel in a blinding, nonstop, adrenaline- and speed-inspired burst of creativity. Essentially, the manuscript was one long paragraph typed on a continuous roll of paper, which his publisher broke down into paragraphs and sections. The novel portrayed an underground America full of what critic Ted Morgan has described as “pure, meaningless, abstract motion.” The main character, Sal Paradise, follows his hero, Dean Moriarty, ricocheting across the country like a rubber Super Ball™ hurled into space. The main energy of these men is their drive to exist outside the mainstream. They do not want to play by the rules of society. They avoid work whenever possible, and when they have to work, they take meaningless, dead-end jobs. All this was antithetical to the mores of the era. In the novel, Sal describes exactly the kind of life he is searching for:

  The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”

  Kerouac wasn’t alone in his search for what he called the “beatific.” Like Kerouac, poet Allen Ginsberg was part of this group that included writer William Burroughs, Neal Cassidy, poet LeRoi Jones, and a number of other artists, hipsters, and writers on both the East and West coasts. Ginsberg came to prominence with the publication of his first book of poems, Howl and Other Poems. It was originally published by City Lights Books in the fall of 1956. Subsequently seized by U.S. customs and San Francisco police, the book was the subject of a long court trial at which a series of poets and professors persuaded the court that the book was not obscene. In the title poem, “Howl,” Ginsberg sets out to celebrate all that is not suburban conformity. He begins by paying homage to all nonconformists: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked…” He also rails against the decadent materialistic society, which he likens to Moloch, who in the Bible was the god of the Canaanites and Phoenicians to whom children were sacrificed.

  Ironically, while the greatest boom in America’s history was welcomed by most, the few who found fault in this prosperity would come to define the next era—

  Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks!

  Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen!

  —from “Howl,” by Allen Ginsberg

  The Beat Generation: (l to r) Hal Chase, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs.

  I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND

  FUELING IDEALISM AND ITS DESTRUCTION

  When a hatless, coatless John F. Kennedy stepped up to the podium in wintry Washington, D.C., to deliver his inaugural presidential address, he did nothing less than recast the national image. At forty-three, Kennedy was not only the youngest president in this country’s history, he was also the first president to be born in the twentieth century.

  Kennedy took the presidential oath just when the country needed him. America was experiencing an identity crisis. For the previous fifteen years, the country had lived through the greatest economic expansion in the world’s history. The United States had moved from a backward, third-rate power before World War II to the most powerful nation in the free world. The only country that challenged its supremacy was the Communist Soviet Union. What this unprecedented transformation meant to the nation’s citizens was still not clear. So much seemed possible.

  “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

  —President John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961

  * * *

  “But what now shall Americans do with the greatness of their nation? And is it great enough? And is it great in the right way?”

  ********************************

  * * *

  Several years earlier, President Eisenhower set up the President’s Commission on National Goals. Around the same time, Nelson Rockefeller, one of the heirs to John D. Rockefeller’s oil empire, funded a special studies project through one of his foundations. Both of the reports from these studies became bestsellers, but nothing really resulted from them. In 1960, Life magazine featured a series of articles on the theme of “national purpose.” Asking questions like, “But what now shall Americans do with the greatness of their nation? And is it great enough? And is it great in the right way?” Poet and critic Archibald MacLeish wrote, “But it isn’t the Russians, now, it’s ourselves.…We feel that we’ve lost our way in the woods, that we don’t know where we are going—if anywhere.” These efforts all identified a crisis in the American sense of purpose, but none of them really provided an answer. They simply raised more questions.

  The gross national product, measured in constant 1954 dollars, rose from $181.8 billion in 929 to $282.3 billion in 1947 to $439.9 billion in 1960. Spending on personal consumption increased from $128.1 billion in 1929 to $195.6 billion in 1947 to $298.1 billion in 1960.

  Over th
e previous decade it seemed everything had changed and the country had not figured out what to make of it. Since the nineteenth century, the morals of the country had been based on such character traits as self-discipline, delayed gratification, and restraint. These values were essential to progress and economic expansion. If workers were lazy and undisciplined, nothing would get built. In conflict with these values was the reality of the marketplace. All these goods and services so conscientiously manufactured would not be purchased if consumers did not buy into an opposing set of values: instant gratification and unrestrained pleasure. In short, self-denial conflicted directly with the needs of an expanding economy. In order for the economy to continue to grow, consumers needed to be unrestrained and to exceed the borders of responsible consumption.

  Kennedy was able to harness the incredibly expansive idea of national possibility and offered an answer to the seeming contradiction between the values that led to prosperity and the values that were essential to its survival. In his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention in the summer of 1960, Kennedy called this new era the “New Frontier”:

  * * *

  We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier—the frontier of the 1960s—a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils—a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats…. The New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises—it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask them. It appeals to their pride, not their pocketbook—it holds out the promise of more sacrifice instead of more security.

  * * *

  With these words Kennedy was able to marry American prosperity to a mission: unfettered consumption was not only good for America but also for the world. He challenged America to do nothing less than redefine its values: Hedonism was good because it drove prosperity, but our good fortune could also improve the world. Kennedy was saying that now that we have achieved this incredible prosperity, we must use it for the good of everyone, not for selfish personal pleasures. It was our duty to take our good fortune and use it to better the world. To quote a phrase often repeated at the time: “A rising tide would lift all boats.”

  * * *

  CARROT AND STICK DIPLOMACY

  Two lasting legacies of Kennedy’s presidency were the establishment of the Peace Corps and the Army Special Forces. Both programs worked toward the same goal: promoting democracy and capitalism around the world. They each approached this goal from opposite ends. The Peace Corps was one of Kennedy’s first programs. In his inaugural address he announced, “To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our efforts to help them help themselves.” In the Peace Corps, volunteers were sent to the poorest regions in the world to make practical differences in those people’s lives by trying to improve the catastrophic inadequacies in health care, infrastructure, and economic inequality, among other things. Ironically, the people perhaps most changed by the program were the American volunteers. “Probably the most significant Peace Corps accomplishment was the education of Americans,” suggests historian Irving Bernstein. “They came to understand the people and cultures of the Third World.” For the first time, young people were stepping beyond a closed and safe America with extremely restrictive immigration laws to see what the world was really like.

  Kennedy called on another elite group of young Americans, this time in the military, to organize the Green Berets, a new section of the Army Special Forces. Unlike the Peace Corps, its mission was not essentially humanitarian. Instead, the Green Berets were formed in response to the long-term instability in the Third World and the Soviet incursions into these vulnerable nations. The Green Berets were designed as a small and elite counterinsurgency force capable of confronting Third World guerrillas. This force was formed in direct response to the success of Fidel Castro and his guerrillas in Cuba two years earlier. They were also organized with other insurgencies around the world in mind, particularly those operating in Vietnam. The Green Berets would not only fight these insurgents, but also train and lead native soldiers against these rebels.

  * * *

  President Kennedy meeting with National Security Committee

  BAY OF PIGS FIASCO

  Often, high ideals clash with the real world. For Kennedy, this happened the moment he stepped into the White House. In his first intelligence briefing, Kennedy was informed by CIA Director Allen Dulles about a covert operation to invade Cuba with Cuban exiles trained and armed by the United States. Dulles apparently had assured the president that the invading force would be welcomed by the Cubans and no U.S. military assistance would be needed. The president had to decide immediately whether to go ahead with the invasion.

  On New Year’s Day in 1959, two years earlier, Fidel Castro and a small army of revolutionaries overthrew the corrupt president of Cuba. President Batista had brutally ruled the country for more than twenty-five years, acting as a tool for American business as well as for the mafia. Batista and his cronies stole millions from the Cuban government and let the great majority of Cubans live in extreme poverty. Castro intended to end the corruption and bring a better life to all Cubans. “The revolution begins now…. It will not be like 1898,” Castro announced, “when North Americans came and made themselves masters of our country…. For the first time, the Republic will really be entirely free and the people will have what they deserve.”

  In Florida and Guatemala, thousands of Cuban exiles were waiting to return to their homeland by force. To stop the invasion, begun under the previous president’s administration, would have been nearly impossible. “If we decided to call the whole thing off, I don’t know if we could go down there and take the guns away from them,” Kennedy observed at the time. Another factor was that Kennedy had criticized the Eisenhower administration for letting Cuba go “red,” or Communist. This liberal president saw the people’s uprising in Cuba as a sign of the Soviet mentality gaining a foothold in the Western hemisphere. In this atmosphere, Kennedy decided to trust his CIA advisers and go ahead with the invasion. In what would become a pattern that would undermine the government’s credibility by the end of the decade, Kennedy was unwilling to acknowledge that his motives were not completely driven by idealism. Powerful American corporations had a large stake in Cuba. If Castro succeeded, these businesses would lose all of their investments, and Kennedy would lose a close neighbor to communism.

  In April of 1961, when the invasion began at the Bay of Pigs, it quickly became clear that it would not succeed without air support from the U.S. military. Kennedy was unwilling to allow overt action because he had only signed onto a covert operation by the CIA. On the beaches of the Bay of Pigs, the well-armed Cuban forces were ready for the exiles. In a matter of minutes they cut down the 1,400 men of the exiled Brigade 2506. The Bay of Pigs invasion failed, and the U.S. involvement in it was exposed. Despite this failure, Kennedy and the succeeding administrations throughout the decade did not learn from the experience. Instead, they hardened their commitment to confront communism wherever and whenever it surfaced. In a sense, they resolved never to be humiliated like that again.

  “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

  Over the next few years, Kennedy and his administration reacted forcefully and decisively against Soviet aggression around the world. At first, this appeared to be a successful strategy, but in the end it would doom American foreign policy.

  On August 31, 1961, the Soviets closed the border between East and West Berlin. They erected the concrete and barbed-wire Berlin Wall that ran for 110 miles across Germany. Anyone caught trying to cross into West Berlin was shot. In a defining moment of his presidency twenty-two months later, in 1963, Kennedy spoke before a crowd of thousands of West Berliners, who were essentially held hostage in their own city. He said:

  There are some who say Communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere, “We can work with the Communists.” Let the
m come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that Communism is evil but it permits us to make economic progress. Let them come to Berlin…. All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner. (I am a Berliner.)”

  These words set Kennedy apart from everyone else in his commitment to fight Communism on every continent. They were hard won after the disaster of the Bay of Pigs, and the Cuban Missile Crisis that occurred one year earlier.

  In the spring and summer of 1962, the Soviets dramatically increased their military presence in Cuba and began to set up ballistic missile sites pointing at American cities. By the end of October, the United States had set up a blockade of Cuba to stop Soviet ships from bringing in the missiles. The U.S. also began moving troops to Florida in anticipation of a military invasion. The Strategic Air Command went on nuclear alert, moving to DEFCON 2, one level short of launch, for the first time ever. B-52s were loaded with nuclear bombs and put on alert as well. The world was now at risk of a true nuclear war. After several nerve-racking days, the Soviets backed down and agreed to remove the missiles.