Transcript Part One:

Chapter Twenty-Six
The Cold War, 1945–1952
Part One:
Introduction
Chapter Focus Questions
What were the prospects for world peace at the end
of World War II?
What was the diplomatic policy during the Cold
War?
What characterized the Truman presidency?
What led to anti-communism and McCarthyism?
What characterized cold war culture and society?
What were the causes, battles, and results of the
Korean War?
Part Two:
University of Washington,
Seattle: Students and Faculty
Face the Cold War
University of Washington, Seattle
Melvin Rader was falsely accused of being a communist
conspirator.
During the cold war era, the federal government was providing
substantial support for higher education through the G.I. Bill.
The student population at the University of Washington grew
rapidly and a strong sense of community among the students grew,
led by older, former soldiers.
The cold war put a damper on this community.
Wild charges of communist subversion led several states to
require state employees to take loyalty oaths.
In this repressed atmosphere, faculty members were dismissed,
students dropped out of school, and the free speech was restrained
on the campuses.
Global Insecurities at
War’s End
Financing the Future
WWII, US-USSR set aside differences
Divergent interests made alliance unlikely.
Fears of depression led US to take international
stance.
USSR saw this as threat.
MAP 26.1 Divided Europe During the cold war, Europe was divided into opposing military
alliances, the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact (Communist bloc).
The Division of Europe
Map: Divided Europe
FDR’s realism: spheres of influence were
inevitable.
The Policy of Containment
The Truman Doctrine
FDR favored diplomacy
Truman committed to a get-tough policy.
Turkey and Greece civil wars:
US afraid of coup
provided $400 million.
The Truman Doctrine—contain communism.
The Marshall Plan and the Berlin Crisis
The Marshall Plan provided $13 billion to rebuild
Europe.
Plan revitalized European capitalist economy
Wedge between the West and Soviet Union.
Gap widened when western zones of Germany
merged.
Soviets cut off land access to West Berlin
Berlin airlift.
NATO and Atomic Diplomacy
NATO
Warsaw Pact.
The East/West split seemed permanent.
Containing communism:
stop its expansion by military means.
Soviets developed nuclear weapons, both sides amassed
lethal stockpiles.
U.S. and Soviets had no plan to control them
Both had stockpiles.
Cold War Liberalism
“To Err is Truman”
Truman presidency: Americans tired of war-time sacrifices.
Inability to bring troops home quickly
Rationing.
Inflation spread
strikes paralyzed nation.
Congress blocked plans for re-conversion.
1946, Republicans gained control of Congress
New Deal undone.
Taft-Hartley bill curtailed labor power.
The 1948 Election
1948 election: liberal community divided.
Liberals feuded with Truman over:
New Deal extension
extent of the Soviet threat.
Henry Wallace challenged Truman
Truman repositioned himself to the left
warned voters of Republicans’:
“an economic colony of Wall Street.”
Congress defeated liberal economic package.
The 1948 Election
The Democrats split
civil rights issues
segregationists ran Strom Thurmond for president.
MAP 26.2 The Election of l948 An
initially unpopular candidate, Harry
Truman made a whistle-stop tour of
the country by train to win 49.5
percent of the popular vote to
Dewey’s 45.1 percent.
Truman’s Victory
Map: The Election of 1948
Truman held on to the New Deal coalition
Won re-election.
The Fair Deal
1949, Truman proposed the Fair Deal.
Public housing
Minimum wage
Social Security increases
Little else
Truman helped define cold war liberalism.
as promoting economic growth through expanded
foreign trade and federal expenditures, chiefly
defense.
The Fair Deal
Truman helped define cold war liberalism.
Promoted economic growth
Expanded foreign trade
Defense spending.
The Cold War at Home
The National Security Act of 1947
A climate of fear.
Massive reordering of governmental power.
National Security Act of 1947
Defense Department became a huge.
National Science Foundation.
CIA fed off the fear of communism.
The Loyalty-Security Program
Truman promoted a loyalty program.
List of subversive organizations.
Many groups disbanded.
Previous membership in them destroyed
careers.
Wide range of restrictions passed Congress.
The Red Scare in Hollywood
The House Un-American Activities Committee and
Hollywood.
A parade of friendly witnesses denounced
communists.
Many people gave names.
A few witnesses attacked HUAC.
Handful went to prison for contempt of Congress.
Spy Cases
Alger Hiss accused of being a communist
spy.
Richard Nixon pursued charges.
Hiss went to jail for perjury.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed despite
protests.
McCarthyism
McCarthy alleged 200 communists worked at State
Department.
Lack of evidence did not stop him.
He played into fears that communism was a demonic force.
McCarthyism attacked Jews, blacks, women’s organizations,
and homosexuals.
Effective use of the media made McCarthyism seem
credible.
McCarthy’s went on national TV and appeared deranged.
Made wild charges of communist infiltration of the Army.
Cold War Culture
An Anxious Mood
After World War II, millions achieved
middle-class status.
Anxiety over nuclear war and economic
depression.
Movies, plays reflected cold war anxieties.
Alienation
Anti-communism.
FIGURE 26.2 U.S. Birth Rate, 1930–80 The bulge of the “baby boom,” a leading
demographic factor in the postwar economy, stands out for this fifty-year period.
SOURCE:National Archives and Records Administration.
The Family as Bulwark
Media: U. S. Birth rate, 1930–1960
Move to the suburbs.
High levels of consumption
Rush toward marriage, parenthood
illustrated these fears.
Baby boom and high consumer spending
changed middle-class family.
Income and Consumer Spending
Growing number of married, middle-class
women sought employment.
The Family
Commentators bemoaned destruction of
traditional family.
They linked this to threat of communism.
Experts bemoaned women in workplace.
Trend was evident in declining numbers of
female graduates.
Military-Industrial Communities in the
West
The cold war impacted the West.
New military-industrial communities arose
Federal spending.
Burgeoning population, new highway systems.
Housing sprawl.
Traffic congestion.
Air pollution.
Strains on local water supplies.
Zeal for Democracy
Patriotism continued after the return of
peace.
American Way became a popular theme.
.
Voices of protest had little impact.
Part Eight:
Stalemate for the Democrats
The “Loss” of China
In Asia, American foreign policy yielded mixed
results.
US achieved its greatest Asian success in Japan.
In China, Mao Zedong’s communist revolution.
Overthrew corrupt, pro-American regime of Jiang
Jeishi.
Truman administration was saddled with the
MAP 26.3 The Korean War The intensity of battles underscored the strategic importance of
Korea in the cold war.
The Geography of the Korean War
Map: The Korean War
The Korean War
North Koreans attempted forced reunification of the peninsula.
Truman called it an act of Soviet aggression.
Smarting from McCarthyite attacks, Truman felt compelled to act.
With Soviets boycotting the U.N., Security Council authorized
troops.
American forces, commanded by Douglas MacArthur, pushed
North Koreans back.
Chinese troops pushed U.N. forces back.
Costly stalemate settled in.
The Price of National Security
Truman bypassed Congress
Truman said authority came from NSC-68.
consolidated decision making
advocated a massive buildup of military power
Korea devastated.
Greatly expanded the containment principle far
beyond Europe.
Stalemate left many Americans disillusioned.
“I like Ike”:The Election of 1952
Korean War also effectively ruined Truman’s presidency.
Democrats turned to Adlai Stevenson.
Dwight Eisenhower was the Republican candidate.
Ran a moderate campaign short on specifics.
Richard Nixon, waged a relentless attack on Stevenson.
Eisenhower effectively used the peace issue for Korea.
Republicans won control of the White House and Congress.
Part Nine:
Conclusion
The Cold War
Media: Chronology
FIGURE 26.1 Number of Employees in Executive Branch, 1901–95 The federal
bureaucracy, which reached a peak of nearly 4 million people during World War II, remained
at unprecedentedly high levels during the cold war.
SOURCE:U.S.Bureau of the Census,Historical Statistics of the United States,Colonial Times through 1970;Statistical Abstract of the United States,1997 .
Appointed to the UN delegation by President Harry Truman in 1946, Eleanor Roosevelt
(1884–1962) pressured the organization to adopt the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. In
this photograph, taken in 1946, the former First Lady is exchanging ideas with Warren Austin,
also a delegate to the United Nations. SOURCE:UPI/CORBIS –Bettmann.
Located deep within communist East Germany, West Berlin was suddenly cut off from the
West when Josef Stalin blockaded all surface traffic in an attempt to take over the warn-torn
city. Between June 1948 and May 1949, British and U.S. pilots made 272,000 flights,
dropping food and fuel to civilians. The Berlin Airlift successfully foiled the blockade, and the
Soviet Union reopened access on May 12, 1949. SOURCE:The Granger Collection,New York.
Police and strikers confront each other in Los Angeles during one of many postwar strikes in
1946. Employers wanted to cut wages, and workers refused to give up the higher living
standard achieved during the war. SOURCE:AP/Wide World Photos.
The Election of l948 Harry Truman holds up a copy of the Chicago Tribune with headlines
confidently and mistakenly predicting the victory of his opponent, Thomas E. Dewey. An
initially unpopular candidate, Truman made a whistle-stop tour of the country by train to win
49.5 percent of the popular vote to Dewey’s 45.1 percent.
SOURCE:UPI/CORBIS.
Published in 1947, this full-color comic book
appeared as one of many sensationalistic
illustrations of the threat of the “commie
menace” to Americans at home.
Approximately 4 million copies of Is This
Tomorrow? were printed, the majority
distributed to church groups or sold for ten
cents a copy.
SOURCE:Is this Tomorrow —America under Communism!Michael Barson (ID #002).
The tables turned on Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908–57) after he instigated an investigation of the
U.S. Army for harboring communists. A special congressional committee then investigated
McCarthy for attempting to make the Army grant special privileges to his staff aide, Private David
Schine. During the televised hearings, Senator McCarthy discredited himself. In December 1954,
the Senate voted to censure him, thus robbing him of his power. He died three years later.
SOURCE:Photo by Hank Walker/Time Life Pictures/Getty 50393166.
Edward Hopper (1882–1967) was the most well-known realist painter in the United States at
mid-century. Many of his paintings portray the starkness and often the loneliness of American
life, his cityscapes depicting empty streets or all-night restaurants where the few patrons sat
at a distance from each other. This painting, owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York, expresses the mood of alienation associated with cold war culture.
SOURCE:Office in a Small City ,1953,by Edward Hopper,The Granger Collection,New York.
This photograph, taken in 1955,
presents an ideal image of domestic
life for American women during the
cold war. This young mother sits with
her three small children in a wellequipped kitchen that depicts the high
standard of living that symbolized the
“America way of life.”
SOURCE:Images/Hulton Archive Getty.
By midcentury, General Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) had earned a reputation as one of the
most flamboyant and controversial Americans. This photograph, taken in September 1950, shows
him during his finest hour as commander of the UN troops during the Korean war. He is observing
the shelling of enemy forces shortly before he led a brilliant and successful amphibious landing at
the Inchon peninsula. Nearly 1.8 million Americans served in Korea. SOURCE:Corbis.
Richard Nixon used the new medium of television to convince American voters that he had
not established an illegal slush fund in his campaign for the vice presidency in 1952. Viewers
responded enthusiastically to his melodramatic delivery and swamped the Republican
campaign headquarters with telegrams endorsing his candidacy.
SOURCE:Checkers speech,September 24,1952.AP/Wide World Photos.