Watkins was appointed chair of the Senate Interior Committee Subcommittee on Indian Affairs in 1947, shortly after he was elected to the Senate. Though his Mormon beliefs concerning Native Americans (see Lamanite) have been cited by many as a basis for the Indian termination policy Watkins pursued, he was also influenced by not only his childhood growing up in the west on the fringe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, but also by various cultural movements at the time. The "Culture of Conformity" –endless pressure to be stable and normal, and to fear the "godless Communist menace" – which characterized 1950s America, pushed society as a whole to relish the American sense of freedom, as well as responsibility.