Transcript Truman & The Cold War

THE COLD WAR
Cold War Background
Post WWII Developments
Truman’s Containment Policy
US Military Expands & Modernizes
Korean War
Background & Leadership
• Harry Truman(44): Farmer, WWI, Missouri
– judge, Senate, 1944 VP, pragmatic & flinty
• Churchill: loses election 1945
• Stalin: Background- “man of steel,” 1928
– 5 year plan of collective farms kills millions,
Purges of 1933-37 & 1937-38 kill 7m, Gulag
kills 4.5 m, secret protocols with Hitler
– Communist Ideology: No private property,
material equality, no religion, totalitarian
government, closed society, call for world
wide revolution.
Harry S Truman: 1944-1953
Stalin: Soviet Leader 1924-1953
Post War Developments
• Japan: democracy, westernized, no army
• Germany and Berlin: split into 4 zones
– US, English, French, and Soviet
– 1947 West side held elections, wanted unity
• United Nations created 1945: SF, Security
Council w/ veto, General Assembly
• Soviets take Eastern Europe: E. Germany,
– Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugo
– And Albania. Soviet: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
– March 1948 Soviets coup of Czechs
Truman: Containment
• Truman stops Lend Lease to Soviets
• Kennan telegraph: “contain” Russia
– Stalin is dangerous, Russia plans expansion.
• Greece and Turkey: Civil War w/ Reds
• Truman Doctrine: US will ”Aid free people”
– Against Soviet expansion, $400m
• Marshall Plan: $17 billion, (after $9 b)
– US gives massive economic aid to Europe
• Soviets Blockade Berlin: Truman airlifts tons
– of food and supplies to people of West Berlin
• NATO: Western Europe & US & Canada
– Form military alliance to protect Europe.
George Marshall
Berlin Airlift: 1948-1949
US Military Expands
• National Security Act 1947: Dept. Defense
– CIA, National Security Council
• Russia steels the A-Bomb 1949
• US develops H-Bomb 1952: Ed Teller
• NSC-68 1950: Acheson. US must spend
– more on defense to fight Soviets.
– Defense budget: increases to $50 billion, or
– 17% of GNP (today 3%)
– Army grows to 3.5 million
Dean Acheson: Sec of state
China and Korea
• China: Mao wins, Chiang flees to Taiwan
• Korea: North communist Kim Il-Sung,
– Agrarian South democratic- 38th parallel
– North invades South: Kim; Mao, Stalin
– North pushes all they way to Pusan Perimeter
– Truman goes to UN, multinational force
– MacArthur: Inchon Landing, up to Yalu
– 300,000 Chinese push US to 38th parallel
– MacArthur wants to fight, fired by Truman.
– Armistice: South Korea capitalistic democracy
Korean War: June 1950