President Eisenhower discovered that ending the Korean conflict was more difficult than he had anticipated. By the time he took office, over 33,000 Americans had died in Korea. The breakthrough came when Joseph Stalin died on 3/5/1953. Without the Soviet ruler’s influence, the North Korean government agreed to a truce, and the Korean conflict ended on 7/28/1953.

Although the voters had given control of both houses of Congress to the Republicans when Eisenhower was elected in 1952, Ike and Congress did not cooperate well. Sen. John Bricker of Ohio offered a proposal called the Bricker Amendment which would strengthen the U.S. Senate’s role in foreign affairs. Pres. Eisenhower opposed the Bricker Amendment; when the vote was taken, Ike won by a single vote. Republicans in Congress were disappointed that Ike did not insist on a balanced budget, and the President was disappointed that the Republicans would not take action against Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who was still in the midst of his reckless career.

In the midterm elections, the Democrats picked up two U.S. Senators and 19 seats in the U.S. House. It was not a dramatic victory, but it was enough to give them control of both houses of Congress. Pres. Eisenhower’s disappointment vanished when he found that he was better able to deal with the Democratic Congress than the former Republican Congress.

During the election of 1956, President Eisenhower’s health was a major issue. After a heart attack on 9

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President Eisenhower discovered that ending the Korean conflict was more difficult than he had anticipated. By the time he took office, over 33,000 Americans had died in Korea. The breakthrough came when Joseph Stalin died on 3/5/1953. Without the Soviet ruler’s influence, the North Korean government agreed to a truce, and the Korean conflict ended on 7/28/1953.

Although the voters had given control of both houses of Congress to the Republicans when Eisenhower was elected in 1952, Ike and Congress did not cooperate well. Sen. John Bricker of Ohio offered a proposal called the Bricker Amendment which would strengthen the U.S. Senate’s role in foreign affairs. Pres. Eisenhower opposed the Bricker Amendment; when the vote was taken, Ike won by a single vote. Republicans in Congress were disappointed that Ike did not insist on a balanced budget, and the President was disappointed that the Republicans would not take action against Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who was still in the midst of his reckless career.

In the midterm elections, the Democrats picked up two U.S. Senators and 19 seats in the U.S. House. It was not a dramatic victory, but it was enough to give them control of both houses of Congress. Pres. Eisenhower’s disappointment vanished when he found that he was better able to deal with the Democratic Congress than the former Republican Congress.

During the election of 1956, President Eisenhower’s health was a major issue. After a heart attack on 9/24/1955, Ike was not certain if he wanted to serve another four years. Even with Ike not actively seeking the nomination, no major opposition to him surfaced in the primaries, and he received 86% of the vote (an additional 8% of the nationwide vote was cast for delegates nominally pledged to Sen. John Bricker of Ohio). On 2/29/1956 Ike agreed to run for a second term, but on 6/9/1956 he had an operation for inflammation of the intestines. Within days Ike was back in office.

The two leading Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination had been the primary contenders four years earlier. Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson and Sen. Estes Kefauver faced each other in four primary states, in which Stevenson gained a slight advantage in delegates. By the time the convention met, Kefauver was far behind in the number of pledged delegates. He withdrew from the race and asked his delegates to support Stevenson. Former President Truman announced his support for Averill Harriman of New York just before the convention, but Harriman entered the race too late. Stevenson won the nomination on the first ballot with 66% of the delegates. Kefauver was chosen for the vice presidential nomination on the second ballot by a narrow margin over Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

During the campaign, Pres. Eisenhower defended his first four years and promised more of the same. Stevenson called for a halt in the testing of modern weapons, saying the search for world peace would begin when the hydrogen bomb testing ended. Ike faced foreign affairs crises in Egypt and Hungary during the campaign, and the public was satisfied with his performance. He won another landslide, carrying seven southern states in addition to all of the northern states. The public also re-elected the Democratic Congress; the 49–47 Democratic margin in the Senate was maintained, and the Democratic margin in the House increased to 234–201.

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