ICKES, HAROLD LECLAIR (1874–1952). Born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, Harold Ickes was raised in Chicago, Illinois, following his mother’s death. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1897, began working as a newspaper reporter, and then gained his degree in law from the University of Chicago in 1904. He practiced law in Chicago and was active in Republican Party politics. During World War I, Ickes served in Europe with the Young Men’s Christian Association. Despite the political climate, he remained active in Republican Party politics, and as a reformer, he supported Hiram Johnson’s presidential nomination in 1924.
With the onset of the Great Depression, Ickes worked for Franklin D. Roosevelt and was appointed secretary of the interior in 1933, a post he held until 1946, becoming in the process one of the greatest public administrators of all time. Under his leadership the Department of the Interior expanded conservation policies and established several new national parks. Ickes helped to establish the Civilian Conservation Corps and was then appointed head of the Public Works Administration in 1933, but his cautious approach led to the creation of the Civil Works Administration under Harry Hopkins. A former secretary of the Chicago branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Ickes worked assiduously to see the inclusion of African Americans in government agencies and ensure equal treatment under the New Deal. He desegregated the Department of the Interior and arranged for Marian Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 when she was denied the use of Constitution Hall. During World War II, Ickes was the petroleum and solid fuels administrator. He was critical of the internment of Japanese Americans. After the war, he retired from politics and spent most of his time writing his memoirs and columns for various newspapers.
IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY ACT, 1952. Known as the McCarran-Walter Act, the Immigration and Nationality Act was passed over President Harry S. Truman’s veto on 27 June 1952. The act was introduced by Senator Pat McCarran, a Democrat from Nevada, and Francis Walter, a Democrat from Pennsylvania. While it lifted the blanket exclusion on the immigration and naturalization of Asians, it expanded the quota system introduced in the 1920s and included clauses allowing the deportation or prevention of entry of any aliens linked to subversive organizations. In the climate of McCarthyism, that meant communist or similar groups.
INCHON. Inchon was the port in North Korea where during the Korean War on 15 September 1950 General Douglas MacArthur made a daring amphibious landing with more than 70,000 troops more than 150 miles behind the North Korean army’s lines. The attack was so successful that North Korean supply lines were cut and their strength halved. United Nations forces were then able to push back the North Koreans, only to be halted by the entry of communist China in November.
INDIAN REORGANIZATION ACT, 1934. Known as the Wheeler-Howard Act, the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 was central to the “Indian New Deal” introduced by Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier. Intended to improve the situation of Native Americans, the act repealed the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887, restored surplus reservation lands to the tribes, and authorized the provision of funds to purchase additional lands. Loans were provided for existing Indian organizations and for those establishing tribal government and also to enable Native Americans to attend college and vocational training programs. However, while 180 tribes accepted the act, more than 70, including the Navajos, did not, and the measure was only a partial success.
INTERNAL SECURITY ACT, 1950. Also known as the McCarran Act or McCarran-Wood Act, the Internal Security Act passed on 23 September 1950 required communist organizations and their officials to register with the attorney general and excluded members of such organizations from the federal government. The act also provided for the exclusion, deportation, or denial of passports to members of communist organizations. The act was introduced by Democrat Pat McCarran and the chair of the House Un-American Activities Committee, Democratic representative John Stephen Wood, and it reflected the widespread fear of subversion during the period of McCarthyism. It was passed over President Harry S. Truman’s veto. See also COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (CPUSA).
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF). The IMF was established by 44 countries at the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944 and came into effect on 27 December 1945. It was intended to prevent a recurrence of the international economic instability of the 1930s by encouraging international monetary cooperation and the maintenance of exchange rates. The fund was established to provide aid to enable countries to maintain the value of their currencies in times of crisis. It commenced operations in 1946 with around $8 billion in funds from member nations. A weighted voting system that allocated votes according to the size of each country’s contribution gave the United States the largest voting share.
The Soviet Union refused to join the IMF, but after Soviet collapse in the 1980s, the IMF played a major role in distributing Western aid to Russia and other former eastern bloc countries. The IMF was also instrumental in the post–Cold War era for the financial rescue of Mexico in 1994 and 1995 and handling of the Asian economic crisis of 1998. As of 2007 the IMF had 185 members.
IRON CURTAIN. Following the end of World War II, there was growing fear concerning the domination of Eastern European countries by the Soviet Union (USSR). Speaking in Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946, British prime minister Winston Churchill warned of the “expansive tendencies” of the USSR and declared that “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent.” In calling for a policy of strength, Churchill helped mobilize support for President Harry S. Truman’s Truman Doctrine and the policy of containment the following year. After 1947, the Iron Curtain increasingly became a reality with Europe divided between East and West in the developing Cold War. The curtain was finally pulled down in 1989 by populations of various East European countries rather than the West.
ISRAEL. Following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Great Britain established a mandate over Palestine backed by the League of Nations. However, the region was the scene of continuous conflict between the Arab and smaller Jewish population. The conflict escalated, inflamed by demands for partition and the creation of a separate Jewish state. The flight of Jewish refugees from Germany before and after World War II only served to increase tensions in the region, and when the British indicated they could no longer maintain their mandate, an alternative was sought. Calls for a temporary United Nations trusteeship were rejected in 1947 in favor of partition, a proposal initially supported by the United States. However, fighting between the two groups in Palestine erupted again, and on 14 May 1948 Israel, an independent Jewish state, was declared by the provisional Jewish government. It was recognized almost immediately by President Harry S. Truman despite the opposition of Secretary of State George C. Marshall. It seems that Truman responded both to criticism from Republican opponents and the powerful pro-Jewish lobby in the United States possibly with a view to the 1948 election. The immediate result was the outbreak of war between Israel and the Arab League, but support for Israel was also to have considerable long-term consequences for the United States.
IVES, CHARLES EDWARD (1874–1954). One of America’s greatest composers, Charles Ives was born to a musical family in Danbury, Connecticut. He studied at Yale University from 1893 to 1997 and then entered the insurance business. His business was very successful, and he retired a wealthy man in 1930. Ives sold insurance by day and composed at night. Strongly influenced by his bandleader father and by church and folk music, he wrote complicated pieces combining hymns, gospel, folk, and other influences in a variety of pieces ranging from music for piano or organ, string quartets, and full symphonies. He published his “Concord Sonata” and a collection of 114 other pieces in 1922. Ives wrote little after that, and it was only in the later 1930s that he gained recognition for his “Second Piano Sonata.” In 1947 his “Third Symphony” (1904) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
IWO JIMA. Iwo Jima was one of the famous battles in the U.S. “island hopping” campaign in the Pacific against Japan during World War II. More than 75,000 U.S. forces landed on the island of Iwo Jima 650 miles south of Tokyo from an armada of 880 vessels on 19 February 1945. They were faced by more than 22,000 Japanese troops who were dug in and hidden in a network of tunnels. The U.S. troops finally overcame their enemy on 16 March, by which time more than 18,000 Japanese and 7,000 U.S. Marines had been killed. The battle was recorded in a famous photograph of the marines raising a flag on the summit of Mount Suribachi. A statue commemorating that event forms the Marine Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.