Transcript CHAPTER 26- Read Monday 14 th

The American Promise
A History of the United States
Fifth Edition
CHAPTER 26- Read Monday 14th
Cold War Politics in the Truman
Years,
1945-1953
Following the war….
• Fighting over the future of Germany….
• Both US and Soviet Union wanted to demilitarize
Germany…
• US wanted rapid industrial revival in Germany.. This would
foster European economic recovery and therefore, help
America’s long term prosperity.
• However, the Soviet Union wanted Germany to be weak
both militarily and economically…and Stalin demanded
heavy reparations from Germany to help rebuild the
devastated soviet economy….
From the Grand Alliance to
Containment
• The Domino Theory—Crises in Greece and Turkey
triggered the implementation of containment through
U.S. military and economic aid; outlining what would
later be called the domino theory,…If Greece and
Turkey fall to ‘rebels’…all would follow
• The Truman Doctrine—According to what came to be
called the Truman Doctrine, the United States would
not only resist Soviet military power but also “support
free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation
by armed minorities or by outside pressures”; would
aid any kind of government if the only alternative
appeared to be communism.
• In 1947…US began to implement the doctrine of
containment…Americans wanted to take a hard line against the
soviet union but also wanted to keep both their tax dollars and
their men at home..
• Truman had to convince a Republican-controlled Congress to
help Greece and Turkey that now needed aid. He was afraid
that if Greece and Turkey fell to communism then communism
would soon consume ¾ of the world..take over. Truman
warned that if Greece fell into the hands of leftist
rebels, “confusion and disorder” would spread
throughout the entire Middle East and eventually
would threaten Europe.
• Republican foreign policy leader, Arthur Vandenberg told
Truman that to get approval, he would have to “scare hell out of
the country”…
• So that’s what Truman did.
Developing atomic weapons :
Advocates of the new policy of containment
quickly developed a defense strategy to back it
up; after learning that the Soviets had
successfully detonated an atomic bomb, thus
ending the U.S. monopoly on nuclear weapons,
Truman approved development of an even
deadlier weapon, a hydrogen bomb; the Soviets
soon followed with their own hydrogen bomb;
from the 1950s to the 1980s, deterrence formed
the basis of American nuclear strategy; created
an ever-escalating arms race.
• Forging Military Alliances with
Other Nations—Marked a reversal of
the nation’s traditional foreign policy;
in 1949, the United States joined its
first peacetime military alliance, the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO); For the first time in its history
the United States pledged to go to war
if one of its allies was attacked.-wow!
• Establishing a Secret Spy Network
to Subvert Communist Expansion—
The government improved espionage
capabilities; created the Central
Intelligence Agency to gather
intelligence and perform sabotage,
propaganda, and other anti-Communist
activities; would topple legitimate
foreign governments and violate the
rights of U.S. citizens.
• Capturing Hearts and Minds—Lastly,
the government intensified propaganda
efforts to win hearts and minds
throughout the world.
Adopting Communist Ideas
—Leaders of many liberation
movements, impressed with the
rapid economic growth of Russia,
adopted socialist or Communist
ideas; few had formal ties with the
Soviet Union, but American leaders
saw them as a threatening
extension of Soviet power.
Inflation
—Inflation, not unemployment, turned out
to be the most severe problem in the early
postwar years; shortages and consumer
demand drove up prices until industry could
convert fully to civilian production.
•
Women Workers—As many as 68 to 85 percent
of women wanted to keep their wartime jobs, but
most who remained in the workforce had to settle
for relatively low-paying jobs in light industry or
the service sector.
• A Stabilized Economy—By 1947, the nation had
survived the strains of reconversion and avoided
a postwar depression; economic boom lasted
through the 1960s.
• The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act—The GI Bill
was the only large welfare measure passed after
the New Deal; offered 16 million veterans job
training and education; unemployment; and lowinterest loans; sparked a boom in higher
education; but the GI Bill discriminated against
women because they filled just a small number of
military spots; discriminated against blacks
because the funds were administered at the state
and local levels.
Truman’s Civil Rights Program—Despite his need
for southern white votes, Truman acted more boldly on civil
rights than any previous president, thus appealing more to
northern black and liberal voters; created the President’s
Commission on Civil Rights and became the first president
to address the NAACP.
Lack of Implementation—As with much of his
domestic program, the president failed to follow up
aggressively on his bold words that all Americans should
have equal rights to housing, education, employment, and
the ballot; but he did desegregate the armed forces in
1950; Truman broke sharply with the past and used his
office to set a moral agenda for the nation’s longest
unfulfilled promise.
Mexican Americans—Mexican Americans endured
similar injustices, such as the routine segregation of
children in the public schools, and they too raised their
voices after World War II; formed the American GI Forum to
battle discrimination against Latinos.
The Domestic Chill: McCarthyism
1.The Second Red Scare—Truman’s domestic program also suffered
from a wave of anti-Communist hysteria that weakened both left
and liberal forces; Republicans who had attacked the New Deal
as a plot of radicals now jumped on revelations of Soviet
espionage and Cold War setbacks, such as the Communist
triumph in China, to accuse Democrats of fostering internal
subversion.
• 2. Joseph McCarthy—Senator Joseph McCarthy argued that
Communists within the United States were more dangerous than
those abroad; got press coverage in spite of his reckless and
often ludicrous accusations; influence was so great that
McCarthyism became a term synonymous with the antiCommunist crusade.
• 3. Revelations of Espionage—Revelations of Soviet espionage
gave some credibility to fears of internal communism, but most
individuals hunted down in the Red Scare had done nothing
more than join the Communist Party at one time, associate with
Communists, or support radical causes; most of these activities
had already taken place before the Cold War made the Soviet
Union an enemy.
• 4. Identifying Communists—Hunt for Communists conducted by
both the executive branch and Congress; in 1947, Truman issued
Executive Order 9835, establishing loyalty review boards to
investigate federal employees; hundreds of employees were fired
or resigned over accusations of disloyalty or “sexual perversion”;
the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigated
government employees and the movie industry; targets of the
investigations often lost their jobs and suffered public ostracism.
• 5. The Smith Act—The administration also went directly after the
Communist Party; prosecuted its leaders under the Smith Act,
passed in 1940, which made it a crime to “advocate the overthrow
and destruction of the Government of the United States by force
and violence”; Supreme Court agreed that the Communist threat
overrode constitutional guarantees.
• 6. Beyond Washington—The domestic Cold War spread beyond the
nation’s capital to state and local governments, which investigated
citizens, demanded loyalty oaths, fired individuals suspected of
disloyalty, banned books from public libraries, and more; overall,
McCarthyism caused untold economic and psychological harm to
individuals innocent of breaking any law.
Korea and the Military Implementation
of Containment
• Korea Divided—After World War II, Korea
was divided into two occupation zones at
the thirty-eighth parallel: North Korea,
supported by the Soviet Union, and South
Korea, supported by the United States.
• North Invades South—Skirmishes between
North and South Korean troops had
occurred since 1948; in June 1950,
however, 90,000 North Koreans swept into
South Korea.
Korea, Communism, and the
1952 Election
1. Eisenhower for president
2. The “Checkers speech” saves Nixon
3. Republican victory
An Armistice and the War’s
Costs
1. The war ends
2. A success for containment
3. NSC 68
4. U.S. involvement in Asia
STUDENT NOTES FOR CH. 26
Part 2
HIS122
The Cold War
• In 1945, the United States and Soviet Union
were allies, jointly triumphant in World War
II, which ended with total victory for Soviet
and American forces over Adolf Hitler's
Nazi empire in Europe. Within just a few
years, however, wartime allies became
mortal enemies, locked in a global
struggle—military, political, economic,
ideological—to prevail in a new "Cold War."
Wartime friends to Cold War foes.
Who started the Cold War?
• Was it the Soviets, who reneged on their
agreements to allow the people of Eastern
Europe to determine their own fates by
imposing totalitarian rule on territories
unlucky enough to fall behind the "Iron
Curtain?“. . . . . .
. . . . . .OR. . . . .
• Was it the Americans, who ignored the
Soviets' legitimate security concerns, sought
to intimidate the world with the atomic bomb,
and pushed relentlessly to expand their own
international influence and market
dominance?
The “Big Three”
• Roosevelt
• British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
• Soviet Premier Josef Stalin
What to do with Poland??
•
•
•
•
Unfortunate position on the map
Polish government
Stalin vs. Churchill & Roosevelt
Influence of wartime casualties
Next “Big Three” Conference
• In Yalta
• Agreements
• “Declaration of
Liberated Europe”
End of the Yalta Agreements
• Stalin happy. . .
• Roosevelt and Churchill happy. . .
• …But what would happen if the Eastern
Europeans sought to self-determine
themselves out of the Soviet orbit? Future
disputes over the problematic Yalta
agreements were not just likely; they were
virtually inevitable!
Changes
•
•
•
•
Roosevelt’s death
Truman takes over
Hard-line position
Containment of Communism
. . . So who started the Cold War?
• Stalin?
• America?
• Both?
The Wrong Question?
• In the end, it may be that "Who started the Cold War?" is
simply the wrong question to ask. World War II destroyed all
other major rivals to American and Soviet power; the US and
USSR emerged from the conflict as the only two nations on
earth that could hope to propagate their social and political
systems on a global scale. Each commanded powerful military
forces; each espoused globally expansive ideologies; each
feared and distrusted the other. In the end, it may have been
more shocking if the two superpowers had not become great
rivals and Cold War enemies.