NAGASAKI. Nagasaki was the large seaport and center of war production on the west coast of Kyushu, Japan, where the second atomic bomb was dropped from a U.S. Air Force B-29 bomber on 9 August 1945. The original choice of target, Kokura, had been obscured by clouds forcing the aircrew to turn to Nagasaki as the alternative. The bomb, named “Fat Man,” was bigger than the one dropped on Hiroshima, but damage was limited by the proximity of the sea and a mountain range. Nonetheless, 2.6 square miles of city were totally destroyed and 80,000 people were killed. The following day, the Japanese government announced that it would accept the terms for surrender outlined at the Potsdam conference.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP). Formed in 1910 as an outgrowth of the 1909 National Negro Congress called by white reformers and journalists Oswald Garrison Villard, Mary White Ovington, and William Walling following the race riot in Springfield, Illinois, the NAACP became the leading civil rights organization in the United States until the 1950s. With its monthly journal The Crisis, edited by African American W. E. B. Du Bois, the NAACP quickly grew in size and by 1919 had a membership of 90,000. Although many of the leading officers were white, after World War I the organization was increasingly influenced by its African American national secretary, James Weldon Johnson, and field secretary, Walter White. The association organized a silent protest following the East St. Louis Riot in 1917, led the campaign against lynching in the 1920s, and in the 1930s took part in the defense of the Scottsboro Boys. It also had some success influencing President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, particularly through Eleanor Roosevelt.
In 1939, the NAACP established a legal defense and educational fund that began the legal challenges to segregation that culminated in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision in 1954. That year, the association also began to work with other groups to challenge segregation and discrimination in national defense, and in 1941 it supported A. Philip Randolph’s call for a March on Washington that led to the creation of the Fair Employment Practices Committee. After Pearl Harbor, the NAACP supported the war effort but maintained the pressure for full inclusion of African Americans. During the war, Walter White toured U.S. Army bases in Europe and reported on discrimination. The membership of the NAACP grew from about 21,000 in 1930 to 54,000 by 1940. By the end of World War II, it had reached more than 500,000.
After the war, the organization continued to support cases testing segregation in education, support voter registration movements in the South, and encourage President Harry S. Truman to speak out against racial violence. However, the NAACP suffered to some extent during the Cold War in that it was often accused by its opponents of being influenced by communism. In attempting to answer such charges, the organization tended to avoid association with radical ideas or individuals. By the mid-1950s, it was seen by the younger generation of African Americans as established and rather conservative. It was supplanted to some extent by new groups like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). However, it provided much needed legal and financial support to these groups during the 1960s, and while they tended to disappear after 1973, the NAACP remained as an influential voice for black Americans.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS (NAM). Formed in 1895 in Cincinnati, Ohio, originally with 583 companies involved, NAM became one of the most influential business organizations in the United States. During World War I and immediately afterward, it pressed for the “open shop” and supported the “American Plan” as a way of resisting trade union growth. Membership in the mid-1920s was 5,350, but it fell during the Great Depression to less than 1,500. Led by Robert L. Lund, NAM opposed much of the New Deal and spent more than $15 million between 1934 and 1947 on a media campaign against what it saw as antibusiness policies. From the mid-1930s, it grew in strength again to about 3,000 members. NAM consistently campaigned against Franklin D. Roosevelt. After World War II, the association lobbied strongly in support of the Taft-Hartley Act and helped ensure that it passed over Harry S. Truman’s veto. By 1952, its membership was approximately 16,000 companies. It continues to be a significant voice for business.
NATIONAL DEFENSE ADVISORY COMMISSION (NDAC). As entry into World War II seemed ever more likely President Franklin D. Roosevelt took preliminary steps in war mobilization, appointing a National Defense Advisory Commission of experts to advise the Council of National Defense—the secretaries of agriculture, commerce, labor, interior, navy, and war—on matters of industrial production, raw materials, employment, farm products, transportation, consumer protection, and price controls. However, the body lacked central control and coordination and gave way in January 1941 to the Office of Production Management under the joint direction of Sidney Hillman and William Knudsen.
NATIONAL FARMERS’ UNION (NFU). First organized in 1902 in Texas to further cooperative action and nonpartisan political action on behalf of farmers, the NFU grew rapidly in the South. It flourished in the 1920s and together with the American Farm Bureau Federation was one of the most important farm bodies. The NFU called for protection to guarantee farmers their costs of production and a fair profit. Although the Agricultural Adjustment Act did not deliver this but provided instead for parity, the NFU largely supported Roosevelt’s New Deal program, though some more militant elements within the organization supported the Farm Holiday movement. As the NFU focused on the needs of smaller farmers, sharecroppers, and tenant farmers, it was generally happy with such New Deal agencies as the Resettlement Administration and later the Farm Security Administration. Its relations with both the Roosevelt and Truman administrations were generally good. See also AGRICULTURE.
NATIONAL HOUSING ACT, 1934. The National Housing Act of 1934 established the Federal Housing Administration to insure banks, mortgage providers, and building and loan associations to enable them to make loans for home and farm building or improvement. See also NATIONAL HOUSING ACT, 1937; NATIONAL HOUSING ACT, 1949.
NATIONAL HOUSING ACT, 1937. Passed in 1937 and also known as the Wagner-Steagall Act, the National Housing Act of 1937 was intended to deal with the issue of poor housing and provide for slum clearance. It established the United States Housing Authority (USHA) to provide loans to states, local communities, and municipal housing authorities. By 1941, USHA had assisted in the construction of some 120,000 low-income family housing units. In 1942, the authority became the Federal Public Housing Authority within a newly created National Housing Agency. See also NATIONAL HOUSING ACT, 1934; NATIONAL HOUSING ACT, 1949.
NATIONAL HOUSING ACT, 1949. Passed on 15 July 1949, the National Housing Act of 1949 provided $1.5 billion for slum clearance and proposed a public housing development of 810,000 new homes. Only about 300,000 were built. See also NATIONAL HOUSING ACT, 1934; NATIONAL HOUSING ACT, 1937.
NATIONAL HOUSING AGENCY (NHA). The NHA was established in 1942 to bring together the various federal housing bodies, principally the Federal Housing Authority, Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and Federal Home Loan Bank Administration. It was also intended to provide housing for defense workers during World War II. The agency spent $2.3 billion for this purpose and built 2 million units, albeit many of them of a temporary nature. In 1949, the NHA was abolished and its functions were assumed by the National Housing and Home Finance Agency. See also NATIONAL HOUSING ACT, 1934; NATIONAL HOUSING ACT, 1937.
NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY ACT (NIRA), 1933. One of the cornerstones of the New Deal in its “First Hundred Days,” NIRA was intended to bring about industrial recovery by establishing codes of fair competition that would provide manufacturers with a decent price for their goods and provide workers with a fair wage. The act suspended antitrust legislation to allow industries within the same area to agree on voluntary codes, setting prices and wages. Section 7 guaranteed workers the right to organize. Some 2 million employers agreed on approximately 500 codes. Almost 22 million workers came under these agreements.
Title II of the act established an emergency Public Works Administration with $3.3 billion to provide work relief through the construction of dams, public buildings, roads, airports, and other projects. This was to be partially funded by excess profits taxes authorized under Title III. A National Recovery Administration (NRA), under Hugh Johnson, was established to oversee the operation of the act. The codes were approved by the NRA with the famous Blue Eagle symbol. In 1935, the Supreme Court ruled NIRA unconstitutional in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States. It was not replaced and has largely been judged a failure by historians.
NATIONAL LABOR BOARD (NLB). Established in 1933 to ensure that the labor-related aspects of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) were applied, the NLB was chaired by Senator Robert F. Wagner and included labor and business representatives. It helped settle several industrial strikes but increasingly faced criticism from employers and organizations like the National Association of Manufacturers. When companies decided to ignore clause 7(a) of NIRA, the board had no power. When General Motors made clear that it would not cooperate when faced with a dispute, President Franklin D. Roosevelt bypassed the board. The NLB was abolished in 1934 by executive order. It was replaced by the National Labor Relations Board.
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT, 1935. Also known as the Wagner Act after its sponsor Senator Robert F. Wagner, the National Labor Relations Act was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 5 July 1935. It was intended as an alternative to the labor clauses in Section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act, which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in 1935, and it provided for free collective bargaining and recognition of trade unions. It prohibited strike breaking, “yellow dog” contracts, blacklisting, and other antiunion measures. The act established a three-man National Labor Relations Board to investigate and prevent unfair labor practices, determine employees’ representatives in collective bargaining, and mediate in labor disputes. The act served as an enormous encouragement to trade unions, whose strength increased almost three-fold in the 1930s.
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD (NLRB). The NLRB was a three-man board established by the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. It was responsible for overseeing secret ballots of employees to decide whether they wanted union representation and also to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices. It replaced the defunct National Labor Board (NLB). President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed J. Warren Madden of the University of Pittsburgh; Edwin S. Smith, a former commissioner of labor for Massachusetts and previous member of the NLB; and John M. Carmody, an expert in labor relations and former chief engineer in the Civil Works Administration. Increasingly attacked by political opponents and by such groups as the National Association of Manufacturers and conservative trade unions in the American Federation of Labor, the NLRB’s powers were reduced by the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. However, it continues to work as an important intermediary in employer-labor relations.
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD V. JONES & LAUGHLIN STEEL CORP. (301 U.S. 1 1937). In the case National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. on 12 April 1937, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had found the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. guilty of unfair labor practices in firing union members and had ordered it to cease and desist. When the company refused to comply, the NLRB took them to court, and the case eventually reached the Supreme Court. The court upheld the right of Congress to legislate on labor relations and extended the meaning of interstate commerce in arguing that some intrastate commerce could be within a “stream” or “flow” of interstate commerce and therefore crucial to it. See also TRADE UNIONS.
NATIONAL NEGRO CONGRESS (NNC). Concern about the situation of African Americans during the Great Depression led to a conference on “the economic status of the Negro” in 1935. Among those involved were Ralph Bunche, A. Philip Randolph, Alain Locke, and James Ford of the Communist Party of the United States of America. Following the meeting, some 800 delegates gathered in Chicago in 1936 to establish the NNC, a body representing approximately 600 separate organizations committed to campaigning nationally for African Americans primarily on economic issues, with Randolph as president. While the NNC lobbied in Washington, D.C., against racial discrimination in the New Deal, it campaigned at the local level in support of voter registration in Baltimore and in efforts to secure greater employment in Harlem and Chicago. It also fought to increase unionization of black workers. However, it collapsed in 1940 with the withdrawal of communist support, although the movement officially existed until 1948. Experience with the NNC shaped Randolph’s thinking when planning the March on Washington in 1941 and the decision to exclude white participants.
NATIONAL RECOVERY ADMINISTRATION (NRA). Established under the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) in 1933 to administer the act and establish industrial codes to establish fair prices and fair labor practices and limit “destructive” competition, the NRA was headed by General Hugh S. Johnson and was a central element in the “First New Deal.” It used the Blue Eagle system to endorse products manufactured under the codes. The NRA approved more than 541 codes. However, the Supreme Court ruled the NIRA unconstitutional in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States in 1935.
NATIONAL RESOURCES PLANNING BOARD (NRPB). The NRPB was created in September 1939 and abolished in July 1943. It succeeded the National Planning Board established under the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933. The board’s function was to develop planned proposals for the exploitation, development, and use of national resources. They established committees to look at industrial resources, transportation, energy, water use, land use, and the structure and workings of the economy. From 1939 to 1943, the NRPB was involved in planning for war and also for the postwar. Its report on postwar planning in 1943 called for a widespread program for social reform, and it came under increasing congressional criticism, which led to its demise in 1943. Some of its proposals found fruit in the G.I. Bill of Rights and the Employment Act of 1946.
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION. Created in 1950 by Congress as an independent body “to promote the progress of science; to advance national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense,” the National Science Foundation provided funding for basic scientific research, much of it related to military uses, to maintain the U.S. scientific leadership.
NATIONAL SECURITY ACT, 1947. Passed by Congress on 26 July1947 as part of President Harry S. Truman’s Cold War program, the National Security Act reorganized the U.S. armed forces, merging the Department of War and Department of Navy into one national military establishment, which became the U.S. Department of Defense in 1949. A separate Department of the Air Force was also created. Furthermore, the act established the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency.
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL (NSC). Established as part of the reorganization of military and foreign policy-shaping agencies under the National Security Act of 1947 in response to the developing Cold War, the NSC consisted of the president, vice president, chief of the National Security Resources Board, secretary of defense, and secretary of state. The NSC advises the president on domestic, foreign policy, and national security issues and helps formulate U.S. defense and foreign policy. From 1949, the NSC included the secretary of treasury and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was located in the Office of the President, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower extended it to include a Planning Board and Coordinating Board. Under President John F. Kennedy, the role of national security adviser developed as the leading voice of the NSC. See also NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL REPORT 68 (NSC-68).
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL REPORT 68 (NSC-68). Following the fall of China to the communists and the end of the U.S. atomic monopoly with the testing of an atomic bomb by the Soviet Union in 1949, the National Security Council (NSC) reassessed U.S. foreign policy. Their report in April 1950, National Security Council Report 68, predicted an “indefinite period of tension and danger” requiring determined action to resist attempted Soviet world domination. The report, primarily authored by Paul Nitze, called for a huge increase in defense spending to ensure greater military preparedness and a strengthening of the West’s defensive capabilities. Following the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, military spending was increased, rising from $13.5 billion in 1950 to nearly $50 billion a year later. In providing a blueprint for military rather than economic and political action, NSC-68 was seen as marking an escalation in the Cold War.
NATIONAL SECURITY RESOURCES BOARD. The National Security Resources Board was established under the National Security Act of 1947 to coordinate the strategic needs of the nation at any given time. The board was responsible for surveying the nation’s industrial, material, and other resources in relation to military and defense requirements.
NATIONAL WAR LABOR BOARD (NWLB). The NWLB was created on 12 January 1942 within the Office of Emergency Management to resolve disputes between labor and management in defense industries through conciliation, mediation, and arbitration. The board consisted of 12 members equally representing trade unions, management, and public interest groups. Its responsibilities were extended to include wage stabilization. In total, it was involved in 17,650 disputes affecting 12 million workers. In July 1942, the NWLB adopted the “Little Steel” formula to control wage rises by limiting wage increases to 15 percent over levels of January 1941 to cover the rise in the cost of living. Rises were further restricted from 1943 onward. The NWLB also introduced a “maintenance of membership” policy in 1942, which committed workers to union membership after an initial 15-day opting-out period at the start of defense contracts. When Sewell Avery of Montgomery Ward refused to accept the policy, he was physically removed from his office, and the company was twice taken over by the military. The board was transferred to the Department of Labor in 1945 and abolished in 1946.
NATIONAL YOUTH ADMINISTRATION (NYA). Established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt by executive order in 1935, the NYA was created to provide part-time work for college and high school students. More than 4 million young people were employed by the administration during its existence. Among them were many African Americans, and the NYA included a Division of Negro Affairs headed by Mary McLeod Bethune. The administration was absorbed into the Federal Works Agency in 1943.
NATIVE AMERICANS. From the late 19th century to the late 20th century, Native Americans constituted the poorest and most overlooked minority in the United States. They numbered 250,000 in 1900, and the majority of them were located on reservations in the West and Southwest. By 1930, almost half of their territory, more than 86 million acres, had gone to white Americans. Full citizenship was only granted in 1924. In 1928, a federal government report, The Problem of Indian Administration, declared categorically that “an overwhelming majority of Indians are poor, even extremely poor.” The Great Depression, coupled with the effects of drought in the 1930s, exacerbated the already dire conditions. It was not until the New Deal and the appointment of John Collier as Indian Commissioner that the problems of Native Americans began to be seriously considered.
Collier was appointed commissioner of Indian affairs in 1933. Using funds from the Civilian Conservation Corps, Public Works Administration, and Works Progress Administration, he provided for the construction of schools and hospitals on Indian land. He also introduced the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which halted the sale of land to individuals and enabled tribes to recover unallocated lands. However, not all Native Americans supported the legislation, and Collier resigned in 1945.
During World War II, 25,000 Native Americans served in the military, with the largest number of 22,000 serving in the army. They were not segregated, and many served with distinction. Several Navajo Indians served in communications as “code talkers,” as their language was unknown to the enemy. One of the most famous Native Americans during the war was a Pima Indian, Ira Hayes, who was one of the men who took part in the famous flag raising on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. Some 40,000 Native Americans also left reservations to work in defense programs during the war. They continued to leave the reservations during the 1950s.
NELSON, DONALD MARR (1888–1959). Born in Hannibal, Missouri, Donald Nelson graduated from the University of Missouri in 1911 and in 1912 began working as a chemist with the Sears, Roebuck and Company. He remained with the company for 30 years, eventually becoming executive vice president and chairman of the executive committee in 1939. Seen as sympathetic to the New Deal in 1940, he was appointed to head the National Defense Advisory Committee and then the Division of Purchases of the Office of Production Management. After the United Stares entered World War II, in January 1942 Nelson became head of the War Production Board (WPB) to govern all aspects of war production. He was able but indecisive and allowed his authority, extended under the second War Powers Act of 1942, to be diluted with the appointment of “czars” responsible to President Franklin D. Roosevelt for petroleum, rubber, and even manpower. Even more problematic was the independence of the military procurement agencies. Nonetheless, the WPB was able to limit nonessential production and prioritize production, but when the board proposed that companies that did not have war contracts could prepare for postwar reconversion, the military objected. Nelson was relieved of his job in August 1944 and sent on a fact-finding mission to China and the Soviet Union. After the war, he retired from government service and became president of the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers until 1947. He later became chair of Electronized Chemicals and president of Consolidated Caribou Silver Mines.
NEUTRALITY ACTS, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1939. Determined to avoid the mistakes that led to U.S. involvement in World War I, isolationists in Congress enacted a series of Neutrality Acts in the 1930s, beginning with a ban on the export of implements to belligerents and forbidding U.S. vessels from carrying munitions to warring nations. In 1936, this first measure also included limits to extending loans to belligerents. In 1937, the president was given the power to prohibit even the carrying of nonmilitary materials on U.S. ships and allow trade only on a cash-and-carry basis—the purchasers had to pay for goods and ship them themselves. The 1939 act codified the existing legislation, maintaining the cash-and-carry principle but prohibiting U.S. citizens from traveling on the ships of belligerent nations and banning U.S. ships from sailing to belligerent ports and even into war zones.
NEW DEAL. Accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination in June 1932 President Franklin D. Roosevelt promised the American people “a new deal” to tackle the problems of the Great Depression. The phrase was used by the press to describe the legislative program he enacted following his successful election. The New Deal represented an unprecedented period of federal reform. It promised relief, recovery, and reform, and has traditionally been seen in terms of a “First New Deal” and a more radical “Second New Deal.” In the “First Hundred Days” the Roosevelt administration secured the passage of 15 major bills, reforming banking and investment, establishing relief agencies, and initiating programs of industrial and agricultural recovery. This was achieved through the Emergency Banking Act, Glass-Steagall Act, Securities and Exchange Act, Federal Emergency Relief Administration, National Industrial Recovery Act, and Agricultural Adjustment Act. Relief was also provided through the Public Works Administration, Civilian Works Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, and Tennessee Valley Authority. The First New Deal ended in 1934.
In the face of growing opposition from groups like the American Liberty League and such individuals as Huey Long, Father Charles Coughlin, Upton Sinclair, and Francis Townsend, some of whom appeared to offer more radical programs and growing labor militancy, the New Deal embarked upon a further wave of reform. Additional legislation was also needed as a consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States declaring the National Recovery Administration unconstitutional. From 1935, a Second New Deal, including further legislation to tackle the continuing problem of unemployment and introduce several major reforms, began. The Works Progress Administration established a massive series of public works that eventually employed almost one-third of the unemployed. Reform came in the shape of the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act. The Social Security Act established a basic pension system and unemployment insurance, while the National Labor Relations Act guaranteed workers the right to organize and prohibit unfair labor practices on the part of employers. The Fair Labor Standards Act set minimum wage levels and maximum works hours in interstate commerce. Further housing reform was also initiated with the National Housing Act of 1937. At the same time, some attempt at wealth redistribution was evident in the Wealth Tax Act of 1935.
The Second New Deal ran out of steam due to a further economic downturn, known as the “Roosevelt recession,” in 1937, and because of the political controversy occasioned by Roosevelt’s attempt at “court packing” to change the make up of the Supreme Court. Increasingly, too, foreign affairs began to dominate political concerns, and once the United States entered World War II, “Dr. Win the War” replaced “Dr. New Deal.”
NIEBUHR, REINHOLD (1892–1971). This influential theologian was born Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr in Wright City, Wisconsin. Raised in a religious family, Niebuhr graduated from the German Evangelical Synod’s Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis in 1913 and gained an M.A. from Yale Divinity School in 1915. From 1915 to 1928, he was pastor at the Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, where his powerful sermons helped swell the congregation from 65 to 600 members. During World War I, he supported the dropping of “German” from the Synod’s title and abandoning the use of the German language. After the war, he became a pacifist and, as a result of his knowledge of Detroit’s car factories, increasingly socialist. From 1928 until his retirement in 1960, Niebuhr was professor at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In 1929, he became editor of the socialist World Tomorrow, and he stood as a socialist candidate for election to the New York state senate in 1930 and to Congress in 1932. He was unsuccessful on both occasions.
Niebuhr authored a number of influential books, including Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (1935), Beyond Tragedy (1937), The Nature and Destiny of Man (two volumes, 1941, 1943), The Children of Darkness (1944), and The Irony of American History (1952). He was chair of the Union for Democratic Action, a left-wing but anticommunist group, and he also campaigned in support of aid to Great Britain prior to 1941. After the war, he was a founding member of Americans for Democratic Action and a critic of Joseph McCarthy. In 1949, he was an official U.S. delegate to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization General Conference in Paris. He continued to lecture widely, and in 1964 he was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson. Nonetheless Niebuhr was a critic of U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam. His message of Christian realism and opposition to injustice was an inspiration for civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and made him a major influence in postwar America.
NIMITZ, CHESTER WILLIAM (1885–1966). Chester Nimitz was born in Fredericksburg, Texas. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1905 and served in the navy in the Far East until 1908 when he began working in submarines. During World War I, Nimitz was an engineering aide and chief of staff to the commander of the U.S. submarine force. He held various posts between 1918 and 1922 and was director of the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of California at Berkeley, in 1926. He was made captain in 1927 and served in San Diego, California, from 1929 to 1933. Nimitz became a rear admiral in 1938 and after Pearl Harbor in 1941 was appointed to replace Admiral Husband Kimmel by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox. Nimitz became commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, and when it was divided, he led the Pacific Ocean Fleet though the battles in the Coral Sea in 1942, Midway in 1942, and Leyte Gulf in 1944 and oversaw the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He was made admiral of the fleet in 1944. From 1944 to 1946, he was chief of naval operations, and he signed the Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945 on behalf of the U.S. government. He retired in 1947.
NITZE, PAUL (1907–2004). Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, Paul Nitze graduated from Harvard University in 1928 and began a successful career in investment banking. In 1940, he joined the War Department as assistant to James V. Forrestal and then from 1942 headed various war agencies involved in defense production during World War II. Nitze also was a cofounder of the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., in 1943. From 1944 to 1946, he was part of the team that worked on the Strategic Bombing Survey to determine the effectiveness of Allied bombing raids in Europe and Asia. After the war, Nitze worked first as an assistant to William Clayton in the State Department and assisted with the drafting of the European Recovery Program in 1947 and then joined the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. He became director of this body in 1950 and was principal author of the National Security Council Report 68.
Nitze left office in 1953 but was foreign policy advisor to John F. Kennedy during his presidential campaign in 1960. In 1961, he was appointed assistant secretary of defense and from 1963 to 1967 was secretary of the navy and then deputy secretary of defense from 1967 to 1969. He led the U.S. Delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) in 1969. As an advisor to President Ronald Reagan, Nitze helped negotiate the resumption of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) in 1981 and bring about the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, 1981–1984. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Reagan in 1985.
NIXON, RICHARD MILHOUS (1913–1994). 36th vice president and 37th president of the United States. Richard M. Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California. He attended Whittier College and then Duke Law School, where he graduated in 1937. He practiced law in Whittier, California, from 1937 until 1942, when he moved to Washington, D.C., to work in the Office of Price Administration. From 1942 to 1946, he served in the navy in the Pacific and rose to the rank of lieutenant commander.
A Republican, in 1946 Nixon defeated the five-term Democratic congressman, Jerry Voorhis. He came to public prominence as the member of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which helped expose Alger Hiss and secure his subsequent conviction for perjury. In 1950, Nixon won election to the U.S. Senate when he beat Helen Gahagan Douglas, whom he identified as a communist sympathizer. She in turn labeled him “Tricky Dicky,” a nickname often used by his opponents in later years. In 1952, he secured the nomination as Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice presidential candidate. However, he was accused of receiving illegal campaign contributions but answered the charges in a now famous television speech in which he claimed he had only accepted one gift—a dog named Checkers—whom he would keep.
As vice president Nixon campaigned actively for other Republican candidates and was used to attack Adlai Stevenson. He also attracted publicity when he was attacked by an anti-American crowd while touring Latin America in 1958 and again in 1959 when he publicly engaged in a “kitchen debate” with the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev at the U.S. exhibition in Moscow. Chosen as the Republican presidential candidate in 1960, Nixon was only narrowly defeated by Democrat John F. Kennedy but chose not to contest the election results. Defeated again in the gubernatorial contest in California in 1962, it appeared that his political career was over when he announced to the press that they would not have him “to kick around anymore.”
Taking up a law practice in New York City, Nixon restored his position in the Republican Party by working hard behind the scenes. Having reestablished himself once more, he won the presidential nomination in 1968 and easily defeated Hubert Humphrey. As president, Nixon promised to “bring the nation together.” However, his presidency saw the escalation of the war in Vietnam with further bombing of the North and invasions into Cambodia and Laos that brought massive demonstrations at home. Although he secured the peaceful withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1973, South Vietnam was overrun by northern forces in 1975. Elsewhere in foreign affairs, Nixon began the process of détente with communist China and the Soviet Union, visiting both countries in 1972 and initiating arms limitation agreements.
At home, Nixon was successful in extending social security and introducing environmental reform. His attempts at welfare and health-care reform were less successful. He reluctantly accepted busing to bring about school desegregation and called for a period of “benign neglect” in civil rights. This approach helped further strengthen Republican support in the traditionally Democratic South. In 1972, Nixon won reelection with a massive majority. However, when it was revealed that individuals associated with the Republican Party and linked to the White House had been involved in the break-in at the Democratic Party office in the Watergate Complex in Washington, the Nixon administration became involved in a cover-up. Congressional investigations revealed a history of “dirty tricks” that led back to the Oval Office. Faced with the possibility of impeachment, on 9 August 1974 Nixon became the only president to resign from office. He retired to California and subsequently received a full pardon for any possible wrongdoing from his successor, Gerald Ford.
NORMANDY LANDINGS. Normandy, a region in northern France, was the location of “Operation Overlord,” the Allied D-Day landings that began the invasion of Europe on 6 June 1944. More than 150,000 troops (57,000 of them U.S. troops) landed in several locations, code-named Gold Beach (British), Juno Beach (British), Omaha Beach (U.S.), Sword Beach (Canadian), Utah Beach (U.S.), and Pointe du Hoc west of Omaha Beach (U.S.). Despite heavy casualties, the landings were successful.
NORRIS, GEORGE WILLIAM (1861–1944). Born in Ohio, George Norris qualified in law at Valparaiso University in Indiana in 1883. He moved to Nebraska in 1885 and established a law practice. A Republican, Norris won election as a county prosecuting attorney in 1892, a judge in 1895, and a congressman to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1902. He held that position until 1912, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate, a seat he held almost until his death. An independently minded progressive, Norris opposed U.S. intervention in the affairs of Latin American nations, and he supported neutrality in the war in Europe. He was one of the six senators, alongside Robert M. La Follette Sr., James K. Vardaman, William Stone, Asle J. Gronna, and Harry Lane, who voted against the declaration of war in 1917. He also voted against the Versailles peace treaty and entry into the League of Nations in 1919.
Throughout the 1920s Norris increasingly sided with Republican insurgents in favor of policies to aid farmers, and he supported the McNary-Haugen bills. He was particularly conspicuous in calling for public ownership and development of the Muscle Shoals facilities in Alabama. Norris was cosponsor of the Norris-La Guardia Antiinjunction Act of 1932 that extended some protection to organized labor in the event of strikes. He also sponsored the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution, ending the “lame duck” sessions of Congress from December to March following the election.
Although a Republican, Norris was highly critical of Herbert Hoover, and supported Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal during the 1930s, and led the fight in favor of the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933. He sponsored the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 providing funding for the Rural Electrification Administration and the Farm Forestry Act of 1937. He increasingly supported Roosevelt in foreign affairs, moving away from his earlier isolationist stance. In 1936, he was reelected as an independent progressive but was defeated in 1942 and retired from public life.
NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY, 1949. Signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was a treaty of mutual defense between the United States, Canada, and 10 Western European nations, including France, Great Britain, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Italy, and Portugal. The agreement stated that any attack on one of signatories would be regarded as an attack on them all, and it was a response to what was seen as the threat of attack by the Soviet Union following the communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in February 1948 and the Berlin Airlift from June 1948 to May 1949. The European nations had already established the basis of the agreement with the Brussels Treaty in March 1948, and approval of U.S. participation had been signaled by Republicans in Congress with the Vandenberg Resolution in June 1948. In January 1950, an administrative body, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was established as the command structure. Greece and Turkey joined the alliance in 1952, the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955, and Spain in 1982. The Soviet Union responded to the inclusion of West Germany by creating its own alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. See also CONTAINMENT; MARSHALL PLAN.
NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO). Established in January 1950 to implement the provisions of the North Atlantic Treaty, NATO established a center in Brussels, Belgium, and in 1951 the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) was created in France with General Dwight D. Eisenhower as its first commander. Following the incorporation of the Federal Republic of Germany into NATO in 1955, the Soviet Union responded by creating the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance of communist-dominated Eastern Europe. In 1966, France left NATO because of what it perceived as U.S. domination. Nonetheless, NATO continued in existence, although its role was increasingly questioned with the end of the Cold War in 1990. However, it was recently enrolled in the “war against terror,” and its membership expanded with the inclusion of a number of former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe.
NUREMBERG WAR CRIMES TRIALS. The trial of Nazi war criminals, as agreed by the Allied powers at the Yalta Conference, was held in Nuremburg, Germany, and lasted from 1945 to 1949. The first and main trial of 21 surviving (Adolf Hitler and several others committed suicide before the war’s end) leading figures in the Nazi government lasted from November 1945 to October 1946. It resulted in the conviction and execution of 10 men, including Air Marshal Hermann Goering, but he escaped the penalty by committing suicide the night before he was to be hanged. Eight of the remaining individuals, including Hitler’s deputy Rudolph Hess and his architect Rudolph Speer, were convicted and sentenced to prison terms.
NYE, GERALD PRENTICE (1892–1971). Born in Wisconsin, Gerald Nye became a journalist in Iowa and then North Dakota, where he acquired two papers, the Fryburg Pioneer in 1919 and the Griggs County Sentinel-Courier in 1920. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1925 when the incumbent died and was then elected in his own right in 1926. A Republican in the progressive mold, Nye was involved in the investigations into the Teapot Dome Scandals and critical of the probusiness policies of the administration of Calvin Coolidge. He was also a strong advocate of aid programs for farmers. However, he was equally critical of some aspects of the New Deal, particularly the National Recovery Administration, which he saw as aiding monopoly, and the National Labor Relations Board, which he saw as too sympathetic toward the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
From 1934 through 1936, Nye headed a Special Senate Committee investigating the role of munitions manufacturers—labeled “merchants of death”—in initiating U.S. involvement in World War I. The committee encouraged concerns that the United States would once again be dragged into a war that helped secure the passage of the Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937. As the threat of war approached, Nye was an outspoken isolationist and a founding member of the America First Committee in 1940. In 1944, he was defeated in the election and retired from politics. He set up a consulting business in Washington, D.C. From 1960 to 1964, he worked for the Federal Housing Administration on housing for the elderly, and from 1964 to 1968 he assisted the Senate Committee on Aging, after which he practiced law.