Transcript Onset of the Cold War

The Fair Deal and
Containment
Chapter 31
Introduction
• The United States emerged from World War II the
preeminent military and economic power in the
world.
– Americans had a monopoly over the atomic bomb
and enjoyed a commanding position in international
trade.
– While much of Europe and Asia struggled to recover
from the physical devastation of the war, the U.S.
was virtually unscathed, its economic infrastructure
intact and operating at peak efficiency.
• By 1955 the United States, with only 6 percent of
the world’s population, was producing well over
half of the world’s goods.
Harry Truman
• Became president when FDR died
on April 12, 1945, at his vacation
home in Warm Springs, Georgia.
• Background – Was seen at first as a
“caretaker” president
• Domestic proposals of 1945 –
proposed to continue and enlarge
the New Deal
• Replaced much of Roosevelt’s
cabinet soon after becoming
president and became known for his
decisiveness (The buck stops here)
Demobilization
Under Truman
• The public demanded that the
president “bring the boys home”
– Rapid reduction of armed forces
• By 1950, armed forces down to 600,000
– 10% of what it had been during WWII
– World War II veterans returned to school, new jobs,
wives, and babies
• This contributed a baby-boom
– The Great Depression caused many couples to delay
beginning a family
– As prosperity returned during the war, birthrates began
to rise
– Americans born during this postwar period comprised
what came to be known as the baby-boom generation
Demobilization
Under Truman
• Demobilization did not bring
depression because:
– Unemployment pay and other Social
Security benefits
– Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (1944)
• A Welfare Program for GIs
– The GI Bill of Rights
• Paid for education, vocational training,
medical treatment, low interest loans for
building homes or going into business.
– Pent-up demand for consumer goods (most
important)
• Fueled by wartime shortages
The New Deal Programs
Under Attack
• The problem of inflation
– Demands for wages increases
– Strikes
– Price controls ended after 1946
• Congressional elections of 1946
– Discontent with Democrats
– Truman’s falling stock
– Republicans won majorities in both houses of
Congress
Record of the
Republican Congress
• Taft-Hartley Act – an effort to chip away at the
New Deal (1947)
– Restrictions on labor meant to curb the power of unions – allowed
states to adopt right-to-work laws and allowed the President to
force striking workers back to work for a 90-day cooling off period
– Passed over Truman’s veto
• Tax reduction (1948)
– Truman felt that the government debt should be reduced
– Congress overrode Truman’s veto of $5 billion tax cut
• National Security Act (1947)
– Created a national military establishment, headed by a
secretary of defense. Included the National Security
Council with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Central
Intelligence Agency
Civil Rights (1940s)
• In 1948, Truman
– Banned racial discrimination in
the hiring of federal employees.
– Ended racial segregation in armed
forces
• Professional baseball integrated
– Jackie Robinson –1947 for the
Brooklyn Dodgers (Rookie of the
Year)
– Example followed by other teams
and would prompt football and
basketball to integrate.
– Racism, not inferiority, impeded
blacks
Division of the
Democratic Party
• Truman’s strategy for 1948
– To shore up New Deal coalition
– New departure—emphasis on civil rights
• The 1948 election
– Rep. nominated Thomas E. Dewey (Gov. of N.Y.)
– Democrats nominated Truman and included a strong
civil rights plank
– Southern conservatives formed the States’ Rights
Democratic Party (“Dixiecrats”) and nominated J. Strom
Thurmond (Gov. of S.C.)
– The Democratic left nominated Henry Wallace (FDR’s
V.P.) on the Progressive party ticket, sympathized with
the Soviet Union
1948 Election
Results
• Truman won in major upset
– Whistle-stop train tour – “Give’em hell, Harry”
– Chicago Tribune: “Dewey Defeats Truman”
• Split in Democratic party helped Truman by uniting
New Deal coalition:
– blacks (first major presidential candidate to campaign in
Harlem), Jews, Catholics, farmers, and middle-income
Americans helped by New Deal.
• Democratic majorities also elected in Congress
• A vindication of the New Deal
The Election of 1948
The Fair Deal
• As he began his new term, Harry Truman declared
that all Americans were entitled to a “Fair Deal”
from their government.
– Mainly extensions or enlargements of New Deal
programs already in place.
• Truman won on higher minimum wage and
extension of Social Security, rent controls, farm
price supports, housing, and rural electrification
• Truman lost on civil rights bills, national health
insurance, federal aid to education, direct subsidies
of farm income, and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act
Postwar Efforts
• Revenge
– The Nuremberg Trials (1945-46)
– The Tokyo Trial (1946-48)
• Peace
– The United Nations (1945): promote international
stability
• A General Assembly where representatives from all
countries could debate international issues.
• The Security Council had 5 permanent members –
U.S., Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China could
veto any question of substance. There were also 6
elected members.
• Key: U.S. Senate ratified the UN charter 89 to
2; sharp contrast to League of Nations
Postwar Reality
• Consequences of WW II
– Soviet Union with agenda
– Unlike the isolation after WWI, the U.S. was
engaged in world affairs
• Wartime Agreements
– Unlike WWI, there was no Peace of Paris to reshape
Europe.
– Instead, the Yalta agreement of February 1945, signed by
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, turned the prevailing
military balance of power into a political settlement.
– Potsdam Conference, in suburban Berlin (July 1945)—
Truman, Stalin, Churchill – Finalized plans on Germany.
Germany would be demilitarized and would remain
divided.
Development
of the Cold War
• The Cold War (1945-91) was one of perception
where neither side fully understood the
intentions and ambitions of the other.
– This led to mistrust and military build-ups.
• United States
– U.S. thought that Soviet expansion would
continue and spread throughout the world.
– They saw the Soviet Union as a threat to their
way of life; especially after the Soviet Union
gained control of Eastern Europe.
Development
of the Cold War
• Soviet Union
– They felt that they had won World War II. They had
sacrificed the most (25 million vs. 300,000 total
dead) and deserved the “spoils of war.” They had
lost land after WWI because they left the winning
side; now they wanted to gain land because they had
won.
– They wanted to economically raid Eastern Europe
to recoup their expenses during the war.
– They saw the U.S. as a threat to their way of life;
especially after the U.S. development of atomic
weapons.
Cold War Mobilization
by the U.S.
• Alarmed Americans viewed the Soviet occupation
of eastern European countries as part of a
communist expansion, which threatened to extend
to the rest of the world.
• In 1946, Winston Churchill gave a speech at
Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri in which
he proclaimed that an “Iron Curtain” had fallen
across Europe.
• In March 1947, U.S. president Harry Truman
proclaimed the Truman Doctrine.
The Truman Doctrine (1947)
• Reasoning
– Threatened by Communist influence in
Turkey and Greece
– “Two hostile camps” speech
• Financial aid “to support free peoples who
are resisting attempted subjugation”
• Sent $400 million worth of war supplies to
Greece and helped push out Communism
• The Truman Doctrine marked a new level
of American commitment to a Cold War.
The Policy
of Containment
• Definition - By applying firm diplomatic, economic,
and military counterpressure, the United States
could block Soviet aggression.
• Formulated by George F. Kennan as a way to stop
Soviet expansion without having to go to war.
• Would later be expanded in 1949 in NSC-68,
which called for a dramatic increase in defense
spending, from $13 billion to $50 billion a year, to
be paid for with a large tax increase.
– NSC-68 served as the framework for American policy
over the next 20 years.
The Marshall Plan
(1947-48)
• War damage and dislocation in
Europe invited Communist
influence
• Economic aid to all European countries offered in
the European Recovery Program
• $17 billion to western Europe
• Soviets refused – The blame for dividing Europe fell
on the Soviet union, not the United States. And the
Marshall Plan proved crucial to Western Europe’s
economic recovery.
Dividing
Germany
• U.S., Britain, and France
merged their zones in
1948 - independent West
German state.
– The Soviets responded by blockading land
access to Berlin.
– The U.S. began a massive airlift of supplies that
lasted almost a year. In May 1949 Stalin lifted
the blockade, conceding that he could not
prevent the creation of West Germany.
• Thus, the creation of East and West Germany
North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (1949)
• Stalin’s aggressive actions accelerated the
American effort to use military means to
contain Soviet ambitions.
• The U.S. joined with Canada, Britain, France,
Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg
to establish NATO, a mutual defense pact.
• Pledged signers to treat an attack against
one as an attack against all.
• Counterpart in Eastern Europe – Warsaw
Pact
The Cold War Heats Up:
Problems of the Atomic Age
• Establishment of Israel
– Minutes after Jewish residents of Palestine
announced their independence in May 1948,
Truman recognized the new state of Israel and
began sending them aid.
– (Upcoming 1948 election --strong Jewish vote
in U.S., no Arab vote)
• Russia detonated its first atom bomb in 1949
• Truman ordered construction of the hydrogen
bomb
The Cold War heats up:
Problems of the Atomic Age
• Call for buildup of conventional forces to provide
alternative to nuclear war.
– The Soviet army had at its command over 260 divisions.
– The United States, in contrast, had reduced its forces by
1947 to little more than a single division.
• As the Cold War heated up, American military
planners were forced to adopt a nuclear strategy in
face of the overwhelmingly superiority of Soviet
forces.
– They would deter any Soviet attack by setting in place a
devastating atomic counterattack.
“Losing China”
• Truman was preoccupied with
Europe. Events in Asia would
soon bring charges from
Republicans that the
Democrats were letting the
Communists win.
• Communist movement in
China grew as poverty and
civil unrest spread. By 1947,
China was in a full-scale civil
war.
• Rise of Mao Tse-tung
(Communist)
“Losing China”
• U.S. supports Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalists
– corrupt and inefficient government
• Nationalists lost to Communists and fled to
Formosa (Taiwan) in 1949
• After “losing”
China, the
United States
sought to shore
up friendly Asian
regimes
The Korean War
(1950-53)
• Since World War II the country
had been divided along the 38th
parallel.
– The North was controlled by
the Communist government
of Kim Il Song
– The South by the
dictatorship of Syngman
Rhee.
• North Korean forces invaded
South Korea in 1950.
The Korean War
(1950-53)
• Having already “lost” China, it was decided that
the United States would fight the North Koreans.
– The U.S. would not declare war. The United
Nations sanctioned aid to South Korea as a “police
action.”
– Truman ordered American military forces to Korea
under UN auspices and under the command of
General Douglas MacArthur.
• Stalin had agreed to the North Korean attack, but
promised only supplies.
Military
Developments
• MacArthur pushed the
North Koreans back to
the 38th Parallel.
– He then decided to
invade the North in an
effort to unify Korea
– Chinese Communist
“volunteers” entered the
war and pushed U.S. back.
The Dismissal of MacArthur and
the Stalemate in Korea
• MacArthur wanted to blockade and bomb China
and use Taiwanese Nationalists to invade mainland
China.
– He ordered China to make peace or be attacked.
• Truman removed MacArthur from all his
commands and replaced him with General Matthew
Ridgway who gradually pushed back almost to
original line.
• Snags in negotiations
– Truce talks lasted for two years
– War of attrition lasted for two years
The Armistice
Agreement
• Truce signed on July 27, 1953
– Only a cease-fire.
– An international peace conference was convened at
Geneva in 1954, but nothing ever materialized.
– Korea remained divided.
• Cost of the war
– 4 million people killed (mostly Koreans)
• Military deaths
– U.S.: 33,000 deaths and 103,000 wounded and
missing.
– S. Korean: 1 million
– N. Korean and Chinese: about 1.5 million
Side Effects of the Korean War
• Congress never voted a declaration of war; set a
precedent:
– war by order of the president rather than by vote of
Congress
• Truman also expanded American forces in NATO.
– By 1952, there were 261,000 American troops stationed
in Europe, three times the number in 1950.
• Truman also increased assistance to the French in
Indochina, creating the Military Assistance Advisory
Group for Indochina.
– This was the start of America’s deepening involvement in
Vietnam.
The Second
Red Scare
• Started in 1945 as the domestic
counterpart to the Cold War but
reached its climax during the
Korean War
• Evidence of espionage
– By 1950 anticommunism had
created a climate of fear, where
legitimate concerns mixed with
irrational hysteria.
• Truman signs executive order for
federal employee loyalty program
The Second
Red Scare
• House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
– Accusations about pro-Communist subversives in
government
• The Alger Hiss case
– Whittaker Chambers, former Soviet agent,
accused Hiss, who worked at the State
Department, of passing secret documents
– Hiss convicted of perjury
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed in 1953
Senator Joseph McCarthy
• Witch-hunt
• Saw an opportunity
to improve his
political career
• Army-McCarthy
Hearings (1954)