Transcript History 1302: United States History since 1877

History 1302: United States
History since 1877
THE COLD WAR IN THE 1950S
REVISED SPRING 2014
Introduction
• At the end of World War II, two questions faced the Americans: what
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would be the relationship with the Soviet Union, and would the postwar economy be one of prosperity or depression?
Dwight Eisenhower took office in 1953, John F. Kennedy replaced
him in 1961.
The Cold War entered a new phase, with Joseph McCarthy feeding a
Red Scare inside the United States and the CIA getting involved in
anti-communist activities in various places around the world.
Teenagers in America were preoccupied with newfound freedoms
and with having money to spend, and they spent a great deal of it on
the music of Elvis Presley and similar performers. Their parents
began to call for educational reforms after the Soviet Union bested
the United States by launching the first artificial satellite.
The new medium of television brought all of these events into the
homes of ordinary Americans.
First Soviet Nuclear Test.
 August 29, 1949.
Soviets detonated
RDS-1.
Detonations of Nuclear Bombs, 1945-2006
• United States:
1,032
• Soviet Union/Russia: 715
• United Kingdom:
45
• France
210
• China
45
• India
3
• Israel
1
• South Africa
1
• Pakistan
2
• North Korea
1
(first in 1945)
(first in 1949)
(first in 1952)
(first in 1960)
(first in 1964)
(first in 1974)
(partnership with South Africa, 1979)
(partnership with Israel, 1979)
(first in 1998)
(2006)
Baby Boom, 1945-1955
 WWII veterans come home gradually, usually
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marry soon after.
New Deal Coalition
G.I. Bill
This generation is in their 70s and 80s today.
They tended to achieve middle class status.
Tended to have small families.
1948. Creation of the State of Israel
• 1918. British take over Palestine. Jews, only about 8% of the
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population. Muslim Palestinians, c. 85% of the population.
Increase of Jewish settlements under British occupation.
British mandate to expire 15 May 1948. Palestine to become
a Jewish nation
1947. Civil War breaks out in Palestine between Jews and
Muslims. Jews supported with money and weapons by the
U.S.
14 May 1948. Ben Gurion announced the birth of a Jewish
nation
15 May 1948 – 10 March 1949. Arab-Israeli War. (Israel vs.
Egypt, Syria, Transjordan and Iraq).
 The expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestine
since 1918 resembles the expansion of white
settlements in Indian lands in North America.
Patters on U.S. Foreign Policy
 When looking for allies
a) Settle for what seems to be the lesser of two evils.
b) The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Communist Revolution in China
 Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek and Communists, led by Mao
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Zedong, fighting in China since 1927
Truce 1937-1945 as they fought the Japanese
Renewed hostilities in 1947
U.S. assisted the Nationalists, 1946-1949, with c. $2 billion in military
aid
Corruption amongst the Nationalists. Selling weapons and food in the
black market.
The Nationalists fell Oct. 1949
China “lost” to Communism
China under a Communist regime from 1949 to 1976.
The Chinese gradually abandoned Communism after Mao Zedong’s
death in the 1976.
The Korean War, 1950-1953
 June 25, 1950. North Korean
forces invade South Korea.
October 1950. The Chinese
enter the war.
 The strategic location of the
Korean peninsula enhanced the
importance of what had
originally been a civil conflict
among Koreans.
 Korea's close proximity to
China, the Soviet Union, and
U.S.-occupied Japan made the
outcome of that conflict very
important to all of the great
powers.
 The Americans and Chinese
wound up doing the bulk of the
fighting against each other.
Korean War Casualties, 1950-1953
 c. 4 million Koreans
 c. 1 million Chinese
 c. 36,000 Americans
Defense Budget, 1947 to 1952
 1947. 12.8 Billion
 1952. 46.1 Billion
 1950s. The U.S. invested over 50% of its national
budget in the war industry.
 2014: 40% of national budget spent on defense,
national security, and surveillance.
 American weapon manufacturers are private
businesses.
Cold War Conservatives
Joseph McCarthy
• Republican U.S. Senator
from Wisconsin, 19471957
• Claimed that there were
large numbers of
Communists and Soviet
spies and sympathizers
inside the United States
federal government and
elsewhere.
Robert A. Taft
• Republican U.S. Senator
from Ohio, 1939-1953.
• The leading opponent of
the New Deal in the
Senate.
• Led the effort to curb the
power of labor unions.
Some Cold War Casualties:
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
 Julius Rosenberg. Electronics engineer. Worked for the Army
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Signal Corps, 1940-1945. Fired in 1945 for past participation in
the American Communist Party.
1950. Accused of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets.
June 19, 1953 . Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in the
electric chair at sundown in New York State.
Evidence revealed in 2008 showed that Julius Rosenberg did
pass top secret information to the Soviets, but such information
was obsolete and of little value, and that Ethel Rosenberg was
never a spy and shouldn’t have been tried, much less executed.
Their orphan children adopted by a family unrelated to them.
Professor Moses I. Finley
• Accused of being a
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Communist.
Fired from Rutgers
University in 1952.
Digging ditches and
pushing wheelbarrows in
England.
Published The World of
Odysseus in England in
1954. The classic on Bronze
Age Greece.
Professor of Classics at
Cambridge University since
1955.
Pres. Harry Truman’s popularity at 23%, decided not to run for reelection.
Dwight Eisenhower, Commanding General, European Theater of
Operations during WWII.
A moderate. Approached by both Democrats and Republicans.
Chose Richard Nixon as running mate.
Recession in the U.S., 1953-1955. Result of the end of the Korean War.
Wartime economy collapsed.
A New Deal Republican?
The Bracero Program, 1942-1964
Initially 300,000 Mexican laborers come to agricultural areas
such as California’s San Joaquin Valley.
By mid 1960s nearly 5 million have participated in the program.
Image: Bracero worker ID card for Jose Solano Ramirez, who entered the United States for work in 1961.
Smithsonian Institution.
Operation Wetback, 1954-1957
Bracero Program, 1942-1962
1953. Lieutenant General Joseph M.
Swing appointed commissioner of
the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (I.N.S.)
“Mexican” looking people stopped in
the streets and asked for
identification
U.S. army brought into the
Southwest to detain and deport
“wetbacks.”
1954. 1 million “Mexicans” deported
3.7 million between 1954-57.
Undocumented immigrants
deported along with their
American-born children
The Americans continued recruiting
Mexican migrant workers as part
of the Bracero Program in the
midst of O. Wetback .
Red Scare, Lavender Scar,
COINTELPRO, Project MINARET
• Red Scare – Communists
• Lavender Scare – Gays and Lesbians
• Civil Rights and Labor activists activists spied on, suspects of
being Communists
• COINTELPRO(an acronym for COunteR INTELligence
PROgram) 1956 and 1971. As a series of covert, and at times
illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveying, infiltrating,
discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.
• National Security Agency’s Project MINARET targeted the
personal communications of leading Americans, including
prominent Democrat politicians like Senators Frank Church and
Howard Baker, civil rights leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther
King, journalists and athletes who criticized the Vietnam War
like Muhammad Ali and members of groups like the Black
Panthers, the Brown Berets, and the American Indian
Movement.
The American Youth in the 50s
Jack Kerouac and The Beat Generation
 Young writers and poets based in San Francisco and New York
 Their writings reflected the sentiments of American youth who lived
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under the eminent threat of nuclear annihilation.
They reject their parents’ Christian fundamentalism and antiCommunism.
Emotional and physical exhaustion
Despised politics, consumerism, and technology
Linked happiness and creativity with absolute freedom
Jazz, drugs, and sex
Longing for belief and meaning in life
Search for adventure, renewal, sex, and drugs
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road
1950s, the Age of Television
 Millions of Americans tuning in to programs that provided
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news, politics, and entertainment (and, very important,
propaganda), thus involving Americans more directly in
national and international events than ever before
Bland sitcoms, violent (and incredibly racist) westerns, and
crime dramas
Advertising consumes 20% of air time
1955.Hollywood surpasses Manhattan as television’s
capital.
TV surpasses all other media
Multi-million production blockbusters: The Ten
Commandments (1956) and Ben Hur (1959)
Rock ‘n’ roll
• Formed in southern cities from blend of rural
sounds.
• Blend of white country/bluegrass and African
American soul/blues/rhythm and blues
• 1954. Sam Philips from Memphis, owner of Sun
Records: “If I could find a white man who had the
Black sound and the Black feel… I could make a
million dollars”
• Enter Elvis Presley, a 21 year old truck driver from
Memphis, Tennessee. Read p. 748 of American
Passages.
Elvis Presley
Little Richard’s 1951, “Tutti Frutti”
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFq5O2kabQo
Pat Boone’s 1955 “Tutti Frutti”
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv-LAbMbEn4
Elvis Presley’s 1956, “Tutti Frutti”
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0etRSY9HMbw
Big Mama Thornton 1956, “Hound Dog”
• http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xe8or_big-mama-thorntonhound-dog_news
Elvis Presley’s 1956, “Hound Dog”
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMmljYkdr-w&feature=related
Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Beats
 Both Elvis Presley and Jack Kerouac appealed to
young people dissatisfied with the apparent
blandness of American culture
Dwight E. Eisenhower. President of the U.S., 1953-1961
1953. 1,000 nuclear warheads.
1961. 22,000 nuclear warheads.
The Federal Highway Act of 1956,
Eisenhower’s New Deal Program
 A $25 billion dollar highway project for the construction of
45,000 miles of interstate roads
 Main purpose: To facilitate the deployment of troops in
case of domestic insurrection.
Soviet “peaceful coexistence,”
Eisenhower’s diplomacy
 “Peaceful coexistence,” Eisenhower’s foreign policy.
 Joseph Stalin died in 1953
 His crimes denounced by premier Nikita Khrushchev
in 1956
 Revolt against Communism in Hungary. Soviets
crushed it
 Nationalists, led by Nasser overthrew King Farouk in
Egypt.
 Eisenhower handled both cases diplomatically
Conclusion
 The 1950s, people hoped, would be a time in which
they could stabilize their family lives, solidify their
careers, and leave behind the anxieties of the recent
past (Great Depression and World War II). However,
the race for world supremacy led the Americans to
invest all of their material and intellectual resources
in fighting communism, the political ideology
antithetical to American capitalism. The shadow of
nuclear annihilation hung over the heads of all
Americans.
Sources
 Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty!: An American History, Seagull Fourth
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Edition. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014.
Jacqueline Jones, et.al., Created Equal: A History of the United States,
Fourth Edition. New York: Pearson Longman, 2013.
Kevin M. Schultz, HIST. Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2013.
Carol Berkin, et.al., Making America: A History of the United States.
Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012.
John Mack Faragher, et.al., Out of Many: A History of the American
People, Combined Volume, Seventh Edition. New York: Pearson
Longman, 2011.
Edward L. Ayers, et.al. American Passages: A History of the United
States, 4th Edition. Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2009.
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present.
New York: Harper Collins, 2003.