We Didn't Start The Fire ~ 1950 ~ Richard Nixon

We Didn't Start The Fire

sung by: Billy Joel

 

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio,
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe.

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye,"

Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen,

 Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye!

 

Chorus:

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.

 

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc,
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron,
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team,
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland,
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev,
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez.

Chorus

 

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball,
Starkweather homicide, children of thalidomide, Oh-oh-oh.

Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia,
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go,
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo.

Chorus

 

Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion,
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson,
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex,
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?

Chorus

 

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again,
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock,
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline,
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan,
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide,
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz, Hypodermics on the shore,

 China's under martial law, Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore.

 

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire,
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on.

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire...

 

 

1950

Richard Nixon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     Before the presidency and before the scandals of Watergate, Nixon in the 1950's was just starting to get his political career started.  This is where Nixon enters the stage of American history.

 

     Richard Milhous Nixon was born on a farm on January 9, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California and was the second of five boys born into the family.  Each of his brothers, including himself, was named after a king in England.  He was named after Richard the Lionheart.  They had Quaker faith upbringing.  In high school he discovered he was a great debater.  His teacher once told him, "Remember, speaking is conversation ... don't shout at people. Talk to them. Converse with them" and that helped boost his debate skills.  After the Pearl Harbor attack he left his law practice to help out in the war and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the navy.  By the time the war was over he was ranked lieutenant commander. 

 

     After the war a friend of his suggested he enter politics and that the committee of California Republicans needed a congressional candidate.  The committee ended up backing him against Jerry Voorhis who was the Democratic representative from California's Twelfth District for the past ten years.  He won that campaign.  He became one of the youngest members of he Republican controlled Eightieth Congress. 

 

     In 1950 Nixon ran for the United States Senate against Democratic Congresswomen

Helen Douglas.  At this time American's were on a communist scare and Nixon pointed out that Douglas supported communist policy.  He ended up carrying 53 out of the 58 counties in California and won with over 700,000 votes.  The campaign became known as Pink Lady vs. Tricky Dick.  Nixon, being 37 years old at this time, became the youngest Republican U.S. Senator at this time. 

     Greg Mitchell wrote a book about this election called Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady : Richard Nixon vs Helen Gahagan Douglas-Sexual Politics and the Red Scare, 1950. 

 

     In 1952 Eisenhower took notice of Nixon and asked him to be his vice-president running mate.  They won that election in 1952 and Richard Nixon became vice-president for 2 terms for the 34th president serving from 1953 to 1961.  He later on went and became the 37th president from 1969 to 1974 when he resigned from office.  



We Didn't Start The Fire ~ 1950 ~ Joe McCarthy

We Didn't Start The Fire

sung by: Billy Joel

 

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio,
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe.

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye,"

Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen,

 Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye!

 

Chorus:

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.

 

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc,
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron,
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team,
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland,
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev,
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez.

Chorus

 

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball,
Starkweather homicide, children of thalidomide, Oh-oh-oh.

Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia,
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go,
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo.

Chorus

 

Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion,
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson,
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex,
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?

Chorus

 

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again,
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock,
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline,
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan,
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide,
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz, Hypodermics on the shore,

 China's under martial law, Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore.

 

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire,
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on.

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire...

 

 

1950

Joe McCarthy

 

     At this time in history America was fearful of communism and its politics to take control of the world.  The Soviet Union successfully tested the Atomic Bomb in 1949 leaving American's to wonder if the Russian's will use it against them.   The collapse of the Kuomintang regime in China set up the new Mao's Communist government which put America on alert of all things Communist.  Joe Mccarthy was there to help fan the flames of that fear for his political gain.  This moment became known as "McCarthyism." 

     Joseph Raymond McCarthy was born November 14, 1908 in Appleton, Wisconsin.  He was the fifth child out of nine.  Growing up in a catholic home he attended a one room school house until the eighth grade.  He ended up furthering his education and graduated from the University of Wisconsin.

     In 1939 he ran for the Republicans to be judge of the 10th Judicial Circuit of Wisconsin and won the seat party by slandering his opponent openly through the media.  He quickly learned that running someone's name through the mud gave him the advantage over things. 

     Right before this election he ran for the Democrats to be District Attorney.  He lost that one.  He would flip flop between Republicans and Democrats to whichever would suit his needs.  He truly wasn't loyal to one party or another.  Another example of this would be in 1944, while in the Marines (he served 1942 to 1945 resigning at Lieutenant) he ran for the Democratic nomination of the U.S. Senate and lost.  In 1946 he ran for the U.S. Senate under the Republican nomination in Wisconsin and won the seat. 

     McCarthy was challenging Robert LaFollete for the seat and like usual McCarthy turned to his slanderous ways.  He claimed while he was fighting in the war to defend America LaFollete was home profiting from it.  The fact was that LaFollete was too old at the time to serve in the military for the war.  LaFollete became so distraught over the slandering that he dropped out of politics altogether and committed suicide. 

     The first thing McCarthy did in the Senate was proposed a solution to the coal strike that was going on at the time.  He said to draft the coal workers, including John Lewis who was head of their union, into the military and force them to work the mines.  If they refused they would be court martialed for insubordination and shot.  That forward speaking caught the attention of the press.  The coal strike ended in May of 1950 when Lewis signed an agreement that increased the wages of the workers with new medical benefits. 

     Soon there were allegations that McCarthy took bribes from the Pepsi-Cola Company which could cost him his job.  A Roman Catholic priest advised him to begin a campaign to rid the country of communists to the allegations would be forgotten about.  So on February 9, 1950 in Wheeling, West Virginia McCarthy made an announcement as he held up a piece of paper saying it contained the names of known communist working for the government.  This started a witch hunt on communists in the country.  Over 30,000 books that had a communist way about them, either by author or subject, were banned.  People were calling out entertainers, athletes, as well as politicians as communists.  Twenty-five states even outlawed communists organizations.  In 1951 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg passed atomic secrets to the Russians added fuel to McCarthyism. 

     Many wanted McCarthy to go away but many did not want to go up against him due to his slanderous methods.  McCarthy knew that by using slander and innuendo would keep his name in the headlines and give him political gain.  It all came to a head in 1953 when he started to attack the US Army for its communist leaders within it.  The Army-McCarthy Hearings in 1954 became the first televised hearings in American history.  They exposed his tactics publically and led to his decline.  The Senate voted an official censure against McCarthy on December 2, 1954 for his "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute."

     McCarthy was a man who liked his drinks, but it finally caught up with him.  He had acute hepatitis that was caused by his alcoholism.  He died May 2, 1957 at the age of 49 in Bethesda, Maryland.  He is buried in St. Mary's cemetery in Appleton, Wisconsin. 

     His name lives on with being known as intense anti-communism in America.  It became known to mean as the "practice of making accusations, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence."  (McCarthyism Wiki) 

 

Sources:

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1774.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/9/newsid_3703000/3703305.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._La_Follette,_Jr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Lewis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism