The Fifties Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hiss was convicted of perjury and served 44 months in prison.

Hiss's first perjury trial ended in a hung jury, but he was retried and convicted. He entered prison on March 21, 1951, and served 44 months. Hiss maintained his innocence until his death in 1996 at the age of 92. Hiss had been readmitted to practice law by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1975, in recognition of numerous problems with the case which surfaced after government documents were released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Historians remain divided on whether Hiss was actually guilty or not. Chambers was never charged with a crime, even though he admitted to multiple instances of perjury.

Answer: 205

Halberstam calls McCarthy "the accidental demagogue", because his remark about Communists in the State Department was made as a casual throwaway line. However, a local reporter mentioned the allegation in his story on the speech, which caused the Associated Press to pick up the story, and it mushroomed from there. McCarthy's next stop was Denver, where he was asked about his "list" and he told reporters it was in his other suit on the plane. After a speech in Reno two reporters, determined to pin him down on what he was alleging, took him out for drinks. He refused to be pinned down, at one point even accusing the reporters of stealing his list, which he was unable to produce.

McCarthy continued to make headlines with his red-baiting tactics for four years, until finally he was censured by the Senate in late 1954. After that he was largely ignored, which Halberstam says bothered him more than the censure. In 1955 he tried to get back into the news by giving a speech in which he said that his career as a red-baiter had been a mistake. McCarthy died in 1957 of cirrhosis of the liver. Halberstam says, "If nothing else, he had illuminated the timidity of his fellow man".

Answer: J. Robert Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer was convicted by a 2-1 vote, largely on the basis of the testimony of Edward Teller, who stated that he felt Oppenheimer's lack of judgment made him a security risk, even though he didn't think Oppenheimer was disloyal to the U.S. Halberstam reports that after his testimony "Teller became a pariah within the larger scientific community".

The irony of the whole fiasco is illustrated by the fact that at the time of Oppenheimer's alleged security lapses, Wernher von Braun was working for Nazi Germany, but had since been welcomed into the American space program.

Answer: Iran

The CIA toppled left-leaning prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh and installed the Shah in August of 1953. The Shah ruled Iran with an iron hand until 1979, when his government finally collapsed.

Answer: Guatemala

The coup overthrew Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, the democratically elected president of Guatemala, and after a couple weeks of indecision an army officer, Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, took power. Human rights violations by the new government were atrocious, with some human rights activists putting the death toll as high as 250,000. Democracy finally returned to Guatemala in 1986 when Vinicio Cerezo took office, having received almost 70% of the vote in the first election held under a new constitution.

Answer: Omar Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

MacArthur returned to the U.S. as a very popular war hero, and it was expected he would enter politics the following year. However, the Senate hearings were quite sobering in revealing the consequences of his relentless pursuit of war with China. For example, Senator Robert Kerr pointed out the hypocrisy of MacArthur's supporters. "Let them", he said, "be honest about it and call for a declaration of war with China. If they do not, their support of MacArthur is a mockery." Halberstam reports that Kerr's challenge "was answered with silence".

Answer: San Bernadino, California

The McDonald brothers had operated a standard type of restaurant in San Bernadino since 1940, but as the 1940's ended they had closed that restaurant down and opened another one featuring hamburgers for fifteen cents, and a limited menu.

The first franchised McDonald's restaurant was opened by Ray Kroc in 1955 in Des Plaines, Illinois. The McDonald brothers were happy with their original store and not much interested in franchising, so Kroc took over the business and built it into a multi-billion dollar empire.

Answer: housing

Bill Leavitt did for housing what Henry Ford had done for cars, in that he mass produced houses and sold them at an affordable cost. He created "Levittown", a planned community on Long Island, New York, and then repeated this success in other locations.

Answer: motels

The modern motel industry stems from a trip Wilson took with his family in 1951. He was so disgusted by the lack of suitable motels on this trip that he decided to go into the motel business himself. He developed the Holiday Inn concept, which became so successful that at one point the company was building a new inn every two and a half days, and a new room every fifteen minutes.

Answer: General Motors

During his Senate confirmation hearings, Wilson was asked if he would be able to make a decision as Secretary of Defense that was contrary to the interests of General Motors. His famous response was that he could not conceive of such an instance, because "for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice-versa." This quote is often cited as "What's good for General Motors is good for the country," but the actual quote is accurately given above.

Wilson reorganized the Defense Department during his tenure, and reduced the defense budget from the level of the Truman years. He retired in 1957, shortly after the start of Ike's second term.

Answer: The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett

"Ozzie and Harriett" lasted fourteen seasons, though Halberstam says it was far from the best of the sitcoms. Ozzie Nelson came across on the show as an affable and good-natured husband and father, but in real life he was a stern and exacting taskmaster, both at home and on the show. The cast was a family in real life, and the younger son, Ricky, grew up to be a rock star. Halberstam describes the difficulties Ricky had in his adult life, and concludes: "Ricky Nelson, the charming, handsome all-American boy was, to all intents and purposes, the unhappy product of a dysfunctional family." The reality here is that the picture of the family depicted on these shows was overly idyllic, and had little relationship to the lives of many actual families in 1950's America.

Of the other shows listed, "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" each lasted six seasons, and "The Donna Reed Show" lasted eight.

Answer: Twenty-One

Van Doren's famous winning streak started in January of 1957 and went until he lost on March 11th. When the allegations of cheating later surfaced, Van Doren at first denied them, but when he testified before a Congressional committee on November 2, 1959, he came clean and admitted receiving the questions and answers in advance.

The type of tax laws in force during the fifties is illustrated by the fact that Van Doren was able to take home only $28,000 of his $129,000 winnings. The top tax rate had been 94% during the last years of World War II, and it remained above 90% from 1951 to 1963. The top rate finally dropped down to below 40% in 1987.

Answer: "Howl", by Alan Ginsberg

Demonstrating the wisdom of the founding fathers in establishing an independent judiciary, the federal judge hearing the case issued a strong rebuke to the city. In finding that the book was not obscene, he wrote: "The first part of 'Howl' presents a picture of a nightmare world; the second part is an indictment of those elements of modern society destructive of the best qualities of human nature; such elements are predominantly identified as materialism, conformity, and the mechanization leading to war ...

It ends with a plea for holy living."

Answer: Orville Faubus

Halberstam presents Faubus as a moderate and populist who was not a racist at heart, but who succumbed to pressure from the segregationists against his better judgment. After his stand at Little Rock he repeatedly got re-elected, serving six two-year terms in all. In time he returned to his moderate roots, and in 1964 he received 81% of the black vote when he ran against Republican Winthrop Rockefeller.

The other choices listed were segregationist governors of other deep South states during this turbulent time in American history.

Answer: Fulgencio Batista

Batista had little support among the Cuban people, and in retrospect his fall was inevitable. Halberstam reports that prior to his overthrow, Batista was receiving $1.28 million a month from Havana casinos under the control of the mobster Meyer Lansky.

The U.S. supported Batista till the bitter end, against the wishes of experts in the State Department who knew better. The problem for President Eisenhower was that the American ambassador to Cuba, Earl E. T. Smith, was a good friend of his and a heavy contributor to his campaigns, and Smith liked Batista and liked the status quo in Cuba under Batista.