Postwar Life and Culture 1

Postwar Life and Culture

The Kitchen Debate:

Understanding the Culture of the Cold War

This module takes the famous 1959 exchange between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow known as the Kitchen Debate as a telling moment in the Cold War. The module presents three themes referenced in the debate—the atomic age, consumerism and the American home, and the Cold War in American culture—and explores each in greater depth. The module uses photographs and documents from the debate and extensive visual imagery and primary sources from the era.

Readings:

  • Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Message for the American National Exhibition” (July 24, 1959)
  • Leonard Feather, on jazz as a Cold War weapon (1952)
  • Betty Friedan, on gender myths of the Cold War (1963)
  • Nikita Khrushchev, Speech at American National Exhibition (July 24, 1959)
  • Mirra Komarovsky, Excerpt from The Overworked Mother (1953)
  • Christopher La Farge, on the problem of Mickey Spillane’s fiction (1957)
  • Newton N. Minow, “The Vast Wasteland” speech (1961)
  • Richard M. Nixon, Speech at the American National Exhibition (July 24, 1959)
  • Transcript of the Kitchen Debate (July 24, 1959)
  • Excerpts from “Red Channels,” an anticommunist blacklist (1950)
  • Donald Robinson, “If H-Bombs Fall...” (1957)
  • Mickey Spillane, A Communist meets his demise (Excerpt from One Lonely Night, 1951)
  • Excerpt from The Other America (Michael Harrington, 1962)

Section Questions

  • Settings
  1. What was on display at the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow? Identify three aspects of the exhibit and how they represented the United States.
  2. Compare and contrast the photograph of Nixon and Khrushchev in front of Fuller’s geodesic dome and the photograph of the two leaders at the model kitchen. Consider, for example, how the composition, tone, and content of the images suggest different ways to interpret diplomacy, nationalism, and the role of gender.
  3. In what ways do you think the Cold War was being waged at the American National Exhibition? What aspects of the Cold War are not addressed?
  4. After reading the transcript from The New York Times, consider what made the Kitchen Debate a significant event in 1959. What do you think makes it historically resonant for understanding the Cold War in retrospect?
  • Atomic Age
  1. Consider Nixon’s, Khrushchev’s, and Eisenhower’s speeches delivered at the American National Exhibition. Is it possible to reconcile their expressed hopes for peace with the evidence of the escalating nuclear threat?
  2. Federal civil defense administrator Katherine Graham Howard said, “It may seem a little difficult to equate hot stoves with the cold war but…hot stoves are part of Civil Defense.” Assess Howard’s claim. How was the role of housekeeping and other domestic tasks like cooking connected to civil defense measures?
  3. What were the role and purpose of Nixon’s and Khrushchev’s references to the nuclear threat during the Kitchen Debate?
  4. Do you think that civil defense measures were effective ways to address the nuclear threat? What is your response today?
  • The Home
  1. How did Nixon promote democracy and capitalism in the United States by commenting on consumer goods and the modern home? How would you characterize Khrushchev’s response to Nixon’s remarks?
  2. Interpret some of the ways that promotional plans for ranch homes, advertisements for kitchen appliances, views of Levittown, and images of abundant commodities for families show the significance of the new suburbs. What are some connections between these images and the rhetoric of the Cold War?
  3. Nixon promoted women’s roles as mothers and homemakers at the American National Exhibition. How do you assess this emphasis for women during the Cold War? What was enabling about this emphasis? Limiting?
  4. Some historians have argued that television became an “electronic hearth” during the 1950s. In what ways do images of television and its placement in the home reflect this view? Can you offer an alternative interpretation?
  • Culture
  1. After having read the excerpt from Mickey Spillane’s detective novel, One Lonely Night, in what ways would you say that it indicates how anticommunism became part of the cultural imagination during the Cold War? Why would critics such as Christopher La Farge see such motifs as part of a dangerous trend?
  2. Some historians have argued that the Red Scare was a lamentable but uncharacteristically extreme response to a perceived threat to the United States. Do you agree? Was the pamphlet Red Channels an extremist document or was it part of a larger network of anticommunist beliefs? Explain your answer.
  3. What were some of the aspects of jazz that were so appealing for Cold War propaganda? What elements of jazz challenged its assumptions and emphases?
  4. Anticommunism was a key element of cultural dynamics during the Cold War. How were various cultural media politicized during the Cold War? Compare and contrast ways that cultural figures—an entertainer, for example, or even a protagonist in a novel—were proponents of anticommunism or victimized by it.
Module Level Questions
  1. The American National Exhibition, where the Kitchen Debate took place, demonstrated American culture and products to Soviet citizens. How so?
  2. At the time of the Kitchen Debate in 1959, the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union was escalating. Identify two aspects of this escalation.
  3. The American home, according to historians, was often discussed as a symbol of freedom and democracy during the Cold War. Name and discuss an example of this link in the Kitchen Debate and its broader significance.
  4. How were women and ideas about women’s roles represented and discussed at the Kitchen Debate? How was this role reflected more widely in American culture?
  5. Establish and explain a connection between the civil defense movement and ideas about the home during the Cold War.
  6. Define the Red Scare and identify two ways that communism was represented in American culture.