Transcript The Korean War

The Fair Deal and
Containment
Chapter 18
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
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
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 of 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)
 Nazism prompted Am. reform:
 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 middleincome 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
at Revenge
 The Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46
After, WWII the Allied powers decided to place on trial the
highest-ranking Nazi officers for “crimes against
humanity”
22 Nazi leaders were tried at an international military
tribunal at Nuremburg, Germany. 12 were sentenced to
death.
 The Tokyo Trial (1946-48)
7 sentenced to death and hanged (including Tojo)
18 given prison sentences (released in 1957)
The question of trying the emperor as a war criminal was
dismissed for fear of a revolt.
Postwar Efforts at Peace
 The United Nations – There was some hope
when, in 1945, the United Nations was created;
an organization to 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 World War 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.
The Fall of Eastern Europe
Postwar Reality:
Soviet Control of Eastern Europe
 Europe was politically cut in half; Soviet
troops had overrun eastern Europe and
penetrated into the heart of Germany.
 During 1944-1945, Stalin starts shaping
the post-war world by occupying SE
Europe with Soviet troops that should
have been on the Polish front pushing
toward Berlin.
 Roosevelt did not have postwar aims
because he still had to fight Japan; Stalin
did have postwar aims
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 Fulton College in 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 NSC68, 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.
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 to create an 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. (7,000 tons a day.
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
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 Sung
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.
It would use enough force to deter aggression, but
without provoking a larger war with the Soviet Union
or China.
 The U.S. would not declare war. The United
Nations sanctioned aid to South Korea as a
“police action.”
The move succeeded only because the Soviet
delegate, who had veto power, was absent because
he was protesting the UN’s refusal to recognize the
Communist government in China.
The Korean War
(1950-53)
 Truman ordered American military forces
to Korea under UN auspices and under the
command of General Douglas MacArthur.
U.S. 350,000; South Korean 400,000; other UN
members 50,000
 Stalin had agreed to the North Korean
attack, but promised only supplies.
He would eventually send pilots dressed in
Chinese uniforms and using Chinese phrases over
the radio.
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
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.
Dismissal of MacArthur
 MacArthur wanted to blockade 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.
End of War
 Snags in negotiations
Truce talks lasted for two years
 Truce signed on July 27, 1953
 Cost of the war
U.S. – 33,000 deaths and 103,000
wounded and missing.
S. Korean – 1 million
N. Korean and Chinese – about 1.5
million
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
 ArmyMcCarthy
Hearings
(1954)
Significant Events
 1945 Iran Crisis
 1946 Kennan’s “long telegram”
McMahon Bill creates Atomic Energy
Commission
 1947 Truman Doctrine
Marshall announces European recovery plan
HUAC investigates Hollywood
 1948 Berlin blockade
Truman upset Dewey
 1949 Soviet atom bomb test
NATO established
 1950 Korean War begins
 1952 Eisenhower defeats Stevenson
 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings